Re: keeping the page count down?

[Julie Stickler <jstickler -at- gmail -dot- com>]

If he's the only person to give you that feedback, and you don't think
you're being verbose, why are you trying to cut your writing?  You said
that your document is for office workers, I find that they are often the
most computer-phobic and need the most hand holding when dealing with
software.

You don't have to please every reviewer.  Especially reviewers who know the
product well and might think that there is content in your docs that
"everyone knows."  I often put content in my doc because *I* didn't know it
and  it took me hours to research it, and I figured if it had taken me that
long to track down the answers, any user who hadn't personally coded the
software might also want to know that information and appreciate that I
included it for them.



On Thu, Oct 2, 2014 at 1:18 PM, Debbi Crum <debbi -dot- crum -at- yahoo -dot- com> wrote:

> I just had someone complain "why is the stuff you write always so long?".
> He's the only person who has said this. I don't think it's what I write
> (I'm not that verbose), and I don't go overboard with screen captures.
>
>
> I think it has more to do with the design of the document itself. This is
> a PDF document that explains how to set up cross-references in a
> third-party application, so that our application can query it for data. It
> also briefly describes how to use those query results. The document is
> meant for office workers not developers or IT personnel. The process isn't
> complex. There's just a lot of jumping around between our application and
> the other application and different screens in each.
>
>
> Does anyone have suggestions on how to make a document more compact, so I
> can get the same amount of information in a smaller "package"? Or can you
> give me examples of ones that you think are well done?
>
> Thanks in advance!
>
> Debbi
>
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-- 
Julie Stickler
http://heratech.wordpress.com/
Blogging about Agile and technical writing

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