Re: New Question - online doc vs hard doc

[Denise Fritch <dfritch -at- INTELLICORP -dot- COM>]

>I'd like to hear
>other companies philosophies when it comes to delivering documentation?
> . . .
>I know there is the aspect of the security blanket, especially for
>older, new computer users, but part of our philosophy is that we, as the
>vendor, should not only lead the horse to the trough but make the horse
>drink as well (or at least teach the horse how to drink, or that
>drinking the water is in the horse's best interest, or that the horse
>had better drink the water in the trough because we're not shipping
>water in the same old blue buckets anymore).

I joined my current employer last October. Three plus years earlier they
had to make the same decision you are now discussing. This company decided
to provide only online help. A recent survey of the customers showed that
the customers were very dissatisfied with the lack of paper manuals in two
areas:

    *  Tutorials
    *  Theory of operation

The customers looked to tutorials as a means of training their new
employees in the use of the software.

The theory of operation publications the customers wanted would discuss the
 decisions that must make when implementing the software. (The software is
a very complex business modeling product that ties into SAP's R/3 system.)
These are the decisions the user makes before beginning to use the
software. Reading about the decisions from online help about the decisions
they must make would be too late.

Without publications in these two area, the user was very dissatisfied with
the current level of documentation. The company is now adding these
publication as "first generation" publications to accompany a "third
generation" software product.

Denise L. Fritch