Re: Docs too similar?

["Melissa Nelson" <melmis36 -at- hotmail -dot- com>]

I remember docs that look purty...then I came to work for a NATO contractor 
:)

Melissa


>From: <neilson -at- windstream -dot- net>
>To: Nancy Allison <maker -at- verizon -dot- net>,<techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
>Subject: Re: Docs too similar?
>Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 15:41:39 -0400
>
>This was a problem even back when there was some
>expectation that customers would actually *read*
>the documents. Some tech pubs departments fought
>bravely against it, and occasionally made headway.
>
>Customers who get manuals that look identical usually
>find some way to separate the wheat from the goats.
>Or is that the sheep from the chaff?
>
>But that bunch of blobs and swirls shure look purty
>sittin' there on the shelf.
>
> >
> > From: Nancy Allison...
> > I'm beginning to remember rather fondly the days when technical docs 
>were kinda klunky and were instantly recognizable.
> >
> > In recent years, most of my clients have had gorgeous logos, color 
>schemes, fonts, even stock graphics, that have been used in both marketing 
>and technical documents. Because Marketing has generally called the shots 
>for these design elements, the cover designs of the technical documents 
>have often had this kind of hierarchy:
> >
> > B!R!A!N!D!  N!A!M!E!!!!
> >
> > PRODUCT NAME!
> >
> > Component name
> >
> > barelynoticeabledocumenttitle
> >
> > All around are glossy-looking images and swirls of color that distract 
>the eye from the text, especially the smallbarelythere text.
> >
> > After working for several docs for a while, if I'm at all tired, I have 
>to really focus to tell one from another.
> >
> > Maybe this is more a problem for me than for a user, since I may work on 
>several docs of a docset at once, but the docs are visually so much the 
>same, they become almost impossible to tell apart. The title is buried on 
>the title page, the least noticeable part of all that design (because 
>Marketing is obssessed with reinforcing the BRAND, not the particulars).
> >
> > Typefaces, colors -- all the same.
> >
> > Front matter -- almost identical.
> >
> > Chapter organization -- quite similar.
> >
> > Ok, ok, I admit the *content* is different and so are the running 
>headers and footers. . . but why do I have to scrutinize the doc at that 
>level before I know? Is it unreasonable to think that we should be able to 
>tell docs apart at a glance?
> >
> > In the funkier days, didn't tech doc groups do things like put red 
>stripes on the cover of the User Guide and yellow stripes on the Technical 
>Reference Guide? You know -- color-coding?
> >
> > Even if a regular user sees only, say, 2 or at most 3 of the docs in a 
>docset, they must still be hard to tell apart, all the more so when they're 
>simply displayed onscreen as pdfs. At least with hard copy, you can take a 
>magic marker and draw a black strip across the edge of the pages of one doc 
>and instantly differentiate it from the others.
> >
> > Am I overgeneralizing or overreacting?
>
>
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