Re: In reference to number of steps

Subject: Re: In reference to number of steps
From: Dan Brinegar <vr2link -at- vr2link -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Sat, 21 Oct 2000 00:27:56 -0700

Fri, 20 Oct 2000 04:47:12 -0700 (PDT) Tom Murrell <trmurrell -at- yahoo -dot- com> wrote:

>First, I too would be daunted by a 50 step procedure. As a writer, I
>would try to find a way for the user to accomplish the needed task as
>easily as possible given the design of the task involved. But I don't
>think documentation can 'save' a bad design.

At one point early on in my first big project, I was confronted with
formatting a 53-step procedure that made no sense to me... I couldn't break
it up into smaller subsets of steps, nor could I find anything else in the
bookset that told me this procedure would actually work.

After a few smokes and a couple of rants in the atrium with some customers
going thru training on the product, I realized that the "53-step procedure"
had actually just been thrown verbatim into the book off some notes handed
from an engineer to a techwriter...

It was really "53 different things to try when ya don't really know what's
wrong with the system."

YMMV,

-------------------------------------------------------------
Dan Brinegar Information Developer/Research Droid on opiates this morning

vr2link -at- vr2link -dot- com CCDB Vr2Link/Mixed Company
http://www.vr2link.com/Mixed_Company/

Because fashion dolls can't shoot.



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