Re: HOW TOs?

[Steven Brown <stevenabrown -at- yahoo -dot- com>]

Radwa,

As others have pointed out, your instincts are strong;
you're going to be a good technical writer!

Generally, a task-focused document is better than one
that is feature-focused. Since your boss is the
software manager, it's not surprising to hear that he
wants one that is feature focused, because that's how
he thinks -- like a programmer, not an end-user.
That's the position I'm in. All of the documentation I
inherited was written by the person who helped design
the system, so the procedures are buried in a lot of
explanatory information and marketing-speak.

Maybe you should follow your boss's suggestion for
now, and as someone else suggested, write the "how to"
procedures separately for future use. After the
documentation is published, conduct a survey of your
users to determine what they like and don't like about
it. (If you're a sly cat, you can ask them if they'd
like to see procedural instructions. Who'd say no?)

Steven Brown
Senior Technical Writer


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