Re: Documentation Likes and Dislikes

[Gary Bastoky <garyb -at- MICROSOFT -dot- COM>]

Yvonne DeGraw wrote, in response to Karl Smart's question:
> What type of information do you expect to find in printed?

>>Non-CBT (computer-based training) tutorials, so that I don't use too much
>>screen real estate reading the instructions and following the instructions.
>>Basic installation instructions. Conceptual information that takes up more
>>than a comfortable length for online reading.

I realise that "comfortable length" in this context means quantity, but
my question to anyone who has addressed this issue is, what would you
consider a comfortable line length for online reading? There are pretty
well set "standards" for what is considered comfortable type/leading
and line measure combinations for print. My experience so far, as a
designer, is that the online length for comfort is still very open to
debate. I've watched people reading online docs, moving their heads
from side to side to try and read a line of type that, had it been set
in print, would have been equal to about 15/19 by 48 monospaced sans
serif! Yikes! What a neck ache! How much of the information is actually
retained by the reader at this measure? Any comments/experience would
be appreciated.

Gary Bastoky
----------
From: "Less is more."  <yvonne -at- VENUS -dot- SMARTSTAR -dot- COM>
To: Multiple recipients of list TECHWR-L  <TECHWR-L -at- OSUVM1 -dot- BITNET>
Subject: Re: Documentation Likes and Dislikes
Date: Thursday, July 07, 1994 11:20AM

Karl Smart (karlsm -at- wordperfect -dot- com) writes:

> At WordPerfect we're doing research to try and see what is and isn't
> useful in our printed and online documentation.  What in the
> documentation is valuable to you and what could be thrown out?  For
> example, is the glossary useful?  Would anyone complain if we pulled it
> out?

If your definitions are well-indexed in the manual, a separate printed
glossary may be unneeded. Pop-up definintions online and an online
glossary are certainly useful, though.

> Would it help to reference online from printed or printed from online?

Yes and yes. If users look in one place and don't find info, we should
tell them where too look. Especially during the next few years as companies
seem to be moving more information online and printing less information,
we should give our readers clues about where in that spectrum our
particular product falls.

> What type of information do you expect to find online?

Reference information and task-oriented procedures. That is, answers to
questions I can ask once I have a general idea of what I am trying to do
and how the software works. For a word processor, that's pretty darn
soon after I install. For other products, it may be further down the line.

> What type of information do you expect to find in printed?

Non-CBT (computer-based training) tutorials, so that I don't use too much
screen real estate reading the instructions and following the instructions.
Basic installation instructions. Conceptual information that takes up more
than a comfortable length for online reading.

> I'm posting this for a colleague here at WordPerfect and I'll relay the
> responses.  Please respond directly to me:  karlsm -at- wordperfect -dot- com

I'd like to see this discussion on the list, too. We're dealing with these
issues and I suspect many others are, too.

Yvonne DeGraw
yvonne -at- smartstar -dot- com (use this address, not yvonne -at- venus -dot- smartstar -dot- com)
Santa Barbara, CA