Re: Humor as a communication technique

[Scott Miller <smiller -at- CORP -dot- PORTAL -dot- COM>]

"Angry docs..." that's a good one. Totally accurate too. Early RoboHelp
docs had a deadly combination of being inadequate and sounding like they
were written by Mr. Chirpy Surfer Dude. They've toned it down a little
so now it's just Mr. Chirpy (Just drag and drop! That's it!), but in any
case, it's annoying to be chirped at while you can't finish the job that
your mortgage payment depends on. So for online help, I stay away from
humor.

Except for examples. I guess the difference is that examples are more
passive, you're not trying to tell the user how wonderful your product
is. It's still possible to go overboard, like using Seymour Butts as a
sample name. I like to use obscure names like Aldwyn Roberts, figuring
that anyone who recognizes that name will get a kick out of it.

I think a more appropriate place for humor is in tutorials, if they
still exist anywhere. I relied totally on VW Repair for the Compleat
Idiot, which was pretty darn funny and very empathetic. It even told you
when you were about to scrape your knuckles off.

- Scott Miller
smiller -at- portal -dot- com

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> I also should add that it is ALWAYS a bad idea to put anything
> superfluous--background information, tangential stuff, cute
> analogies, jokes, etc.--in what I call 'angry docs.' This includes
> help files and any sort of last-resort documents that nobody's going
> to look at until they've been struggling with a problem for an hour
> and are ready to put their fist through a wall. Nothing is funny to
> these guys.
>