Re: Too much or too little?

[Todd Sieling <tsieling -at- DIRECT -dot- CA>]

Call it a 3-bears syndrome, but my call would be to go somewhere in between:
1. Open Win Explorer
2. Navigate to the blah blah folder.
3. Double-click filename

Now for some oatmeal...
Todd Sieling

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Technical Writers List; for all Technical Communication issues
> [mailto:TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU]On Behalf Of Linnea Dodson
> Sent: Thursday, February 04, 1999 7:13 AM
> To: TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
> Subject: Too much or too little?
>
>
> I've been buried in writing the same instruction manual for so long I'm
> starting to lose perspective, so I'm asking your advice.
>
> My intended audience is military personnel.  My assumptions section
> includes the statement "this document assumes the reader is familiar
> with finding specific directories and files using Windows Explorer."
>
> Later in the document, I have the instructions:
> 1) Open Windows Explorer
> 2) Double-click c:\directory1\directory2\filename
>
> Is this enough, or do you think I should break it down further into:
> 1) Open Windows Explorer
> 2) In Explorer, open c
> 3) Open directory1
> 4) Open directory2
> 3) Double-click filename
>
> This is already a long document, full of multi-step instructions for
> working a rather complex program.  I'm afraid that if I take the latter
> approach, the number of steps will increase exponentially and the
> document will grow out of control.  I also think it sounds patronizing.
>
> However, if the former set of instructions isn't clear enough, then
> there's no other choice.
>
> Nea Dodson
> who is speaking for herself and not for her company
>
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