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Re: USA Today article demands printed documentation
Subject:Re: USA Today article demands printed documentation From:John Posada <john -at- TDANDW -dot- COM> Date:Tue, 16 Feb 1999 15:37:35 -0500
chris wrote:
>
> With all due respect to Garret, this is just one guy's opinion. I'm not
> saying he's the only one who holds that opinion, but the article doesn't
> give me anything useful one way or the other in terms of decision
> making.
With all due respect to Chris...it may be one guy's opinion, but
apprently, that one guy is a customer of several vendors. To them, he
isn't "just one guy", he's their customer. Does that make his opinion
any less valid?
The article shouldn't "give" you anything toward decision making...only
your users and user community will do that. It simply puts forth the
premise that having or not having documentation should be an issue more
important than cost, like the environment it is used in or the situation
it is used in.
>
> So if your goal is to get Aunt Martha up and running on her Windows '95
> computer, a big old bunch of paper documentation probably isn't a bad
> thing. But not everyone is Aunt Martha.
But some are, or they might be my mother (who just came online 6 months
ago), or they are my friend's mom (who 70 years old, never had a
computer, and just bought a screaming 300mhz portable and an online
account). Do you give documentation because some are or do you omitt the
stuff because some aren't? I go for the lowest denominator. I can always
disregard what I don't need, but I cannot make up what I need but don't
get.
--
John Posada, Technical Writer
Bellcore, where Customer Satisfaction is our number one priority mailto:john -at- tdandw -dot- com mailto:jposada -at- notes -dot- cc -dot- bellcore -dot- com
phone(w) 732-699-3077 phone(h) 732-2910-7811
alpha-pager: 800-864-8444 pin 1857522 http://www.tdandw.com
email pager: mailto:1857522 -at- pagemart -dot- net
My opinions are mine, and neither you nor my company can take credit for
them.
"Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish,
and he will sit in a boat and smoke cigars all day."
"The only perfect document I ever created is still on my hard drive."
