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All good points, to be sure, but the greatest value of reading your post was that I've acquired a new word for my everyday vocabulary.
"Unblundered".
Excellent!
I shall exercise it at every opportunity..... of which I am constantly creating more, it seems.
-----Original Message-----
From: eter Neilson
Sent: July-07-14 3:10 PM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: user expecttations - web-based help
On Mon, 07 Jul 2014 14:38:46 -0400, McLauchlan, Kevin <Kevin -dot- McLauchlan -at- safenet-inc -dot- com> wrote:
> Hoo-boy! Regarding videos in technical documentation, as a user I get
> angry: [list of excessively valid anger points]
Kevin, you left out some...
- When the video tries to show you "code" but is impossible to follow. "As you can see over here, or as you could see if the resolution were better."
- Similarly when the narrator moves a cursor about rapidly. "So we just click over here, and then in this corner we click on the yellow button. I think it's going to be an orange button in the production version."
Printed docs can have "errata" sheets. On-line docs can be unblundered simply by rewriting the text and coding a bit of HTML or making a new PDF.
Fixing a bad video is probably next to impossible, and requires much more effort on the part of the customer to create a complaint. For text, I can send an e-mail: "The word 'not' is spelled 'now' in the sentence about the consequences of pressing the red button in the second paragraph on page 35." For a video I have to view it three times and take notes just to pin down some possible error. Will I bother?
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