[Coco] First experiences with my DE1

[Luis Antoniosi (CoCoDemus)]

I tend to disagree. Some people are not able to produce a decent manual.

It's like teaching someone to do something he's completely a dummy.
Some people just doesn't have this "teaching skill".

A manual is a linear how-to step. The person who cannot teach lacks
empathy to what the dummy one would be thinking of at the present time
of the explanation.


On Sun, Feb 16, 2014 at 7:01 PM, Arthur Flexser <flexser at fiu.edu> wrote:
> I was going to disagree as well, but now that Al has done so, I'll just add
> my voice to his.  Some developers are lousy manual writers, and some are
> very good at it.
> For the lousy ones, the problem might sometimes be that they are too close
> to the product and assume incorrectly that readers grasp something that
> they find obvious.  Other times, it might be that writing with clarity is
> just not one of their skills.  In-depth familiarity with the product
> would be a strength for a manual writer rather than a handicap in many
> cases.  If feedback on the documentation is sought while the product is in
> the beta stage, many shortcomings can readily be remedied.
>
> Art
>
>
> On Sun, Feb 16, 2014 at 6:50 PM, Al Hartman <alhartman6 at optonline.net>wrote:
>
>> I don't agree.  I wrote the user interface and the manual for the CoCo
>> Greeting Card Designer, and many other Zebra products.
>>
>> What you have to do is sit down with the product on one side, and your
>> word processor on the other and simply go through the steps of using the
>> product explaining each decision point and the consequences of making each
>> choice.
>>
>> Then, you can do a step by step straight through walkthrough of bringing
>> up the product using the defaults as a quick start guide.
>>
>> It's easy. My manuals always get well reviewed as being thorough and easy
>> to understand.
>>
>> -[ Al ]-
>>
>> -----Original Message----- From: Mark McDougall
>>
>> The developer should never, ever write documentation for users, or other
>> developers, and there's very good reason for it. It's not the fault of the
>> developer, but of the process.
>>
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>>
>
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