By: Barry Millman

Overview

Many organizations produce in-house tools or modify commercially-available tools for their own use. These tools should get documented so they are of use to others in the organization.

If this documentation is not created or is poorly written, it costs you twice:

• The first cost (attributed to any poor user document) is the cost of answering the Users’ questions (technical support).
• The second cost, arises from the lost time of your employees trying to understand the poor User Document.

Psychological costs also affect both the external and the in-house User.

The first cost: Technical support

This is the cost you incur whenever you produce poor (or no) User Documents. It arises for any User when he/she needs technical support. For external Users, the cost is your technical support staff, toll-free telephone lines, etc.

For internal Users the cost is the time spent by the developer or modifier of the tool to answer the questions of his/her fellow employee. This is an expensive technical support cost…these people are usually paid more than your technical support staff. Thus this first cost is even greater for poor in-house documentation than for shoddy documentation released to the public.

The second cost: Users’ time and resources

For Users outside your company, the second cost is assumed by the Users themselves or their employers. These confused Users are expending their company’s time: the time lost trying to get the product to work, and the time spent dealing with your technical support.

For your in-house Users, this cost is borne by your company. It is your employee–on your time– that is wasting your company resources trying to use an arcane product or document. Here is where your deficient in-house documentation costs you twice.

Psychological costs affect all readers

In addition to these time and monetary costs, there are the psychological costs wreaked by poor User Documentation.

For frustrated Users outside your company, your poor documentation results in a negative perception of your company and its products. This may result in loss of business.

For users inside your company, the psychological cost is decreased employee morale, as evidenced from these possible statements:

• Our company produced this junk?
• These people are not a sharp as I thought they were.
• If other employees can produce this confusing stuff, then I can work at that same level.

Thus the ill will outside your company can cost you future sales; the ill will inside your company can cost in decreased employee morale.

Solution: Informal reviews

Once someone writes a User Document for an in-house tool, that document should be informally reviewed.

Self-review

The author can perform the first review on his/her own.

Use your word processor’s spelling checker to correct common errors. You can use the word processor’s grammar checker, however most of these are inaccurate.

Before doing this review, let the document sit for a day or two. This will help you forget what you meant in your unclear writing. When you do the review and you find yourself asking “what did I mean here?” you will have found a place in the document that needs revision.

When doing the review, imagine you are user of the tool and reader of the document. Imagine the tasks that the tool user wants to do. Does the document enable the Reader to find what he/she needs? Is the writing accurate (correctly describes the tool), clear, and complete? Make the changes that would improve the document.

External review

Then, if possible, use an external reviewer (inside your company). To do this, the writer should:

1. Find a potential User of the tool. This should be someone who is not already familiar with the tool, and as similar to the target audience of the tool as reasonable.
2. Have that reviewer use the document to guide him/her in use of the tool. Solicit comments on the document. Note the suggested changes, additions, deletions, clarifications requested by the reviewer. Some questions to ask might include:
   • Does the document tell you what you need to know?
   • Is it easy to find what you need in the document?
   • Does the document answer your questions? If not, what questions are unanswered?
   • Is the document easy to follow? If not, where are the problem areas?
3. The writer should make changes as necessary.

If you cannot perform this “semiformal” review, then get anyone other than yourself to simply read the document, and make suggestions for improvement.

Caution

Make sure that the review process does not become an inhibition to those writing User Documentation for in-house Users. Stress a cooperative—not adversarial—mechanism whose result is quality work. Do not try to create the perfect User Document.

About the Author:

Barry Millman, Ph.D., has a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering (1966, Carnegie Institute of Technology) and an M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Psychology (Human Information Processing, University of Calgary). He has been a consultant for over 25 years, an instructor, course developer, and award-winning speaker. For the past seven years he has been researching and creating resources to help organizations create great User Documents.

Visit: http://www.greatuserdocs.com/ for resources to help you create the User Documents that your Product needs and your Users deserve.

Visit http://www.greatuserdocs.com/ReadingRoom.htm for more articles like this one.

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – How Poor In-house User Documents Cost you Twice & What to Do About it

The field of content writing serves as a very important feature in a website. The main reason people visit the site is to search for information on different goods and services. Audiences will be satisfied if they get informative and satisfactory content on one’s site. Besides this, a site needs to be well designed as well with information-rich content in order to drive more traffic.

Easy and simple language is the prerequisite of any content. There are a few pointers that need to be reminded at all costs in order to excel in the field of content writing. The first and foremost point is to ensure that the language of the content is in accordance with audiences for whom the articles, reviews or blogs are meant.

For example, if a content writer intends to write a promotional article, then he needs to know the nature and services offered by that particular business and its technical terms in order to make the best promotional style content. Also, a very simple and easy to understand language needs to be used in writing content for the sites so that even the lay man can easily get to know what the content is all about. The writer needs to think from the place of the reader and offer complete information.

Essentials of content writing – authenticity, organization and numbering.

Organization of content is also very crucial and includes proper designing and formatting of the information gathered from various sources. The writer can write an entire article in a single paragraph or can even make the content easy to read by arranging the headings. The relevancy of pointers needs to be properly handled so that the audiences can analyze distinction of paragraphs.

Numbering and bulleting needs to be used in the content to highlight the most important points. This will automatically make the article effective along with breaking the visual monotony.

It is wise to use the conversational language as it helps the readers to feel more involved in content thereby motivating them to continue reading the article.

In addition, the authenticity and originality of the content needs to be considered wisely because offering wrong or prejudiced information to readers can in turn provide negative or incomplete impact.

Needless to say, to be a successful and popular content writer, it is very imperative to have that passion and flair to write. Until the writer is extremely passionate about his or her job, they can produce only mundane and dull content. so, follow these simple and beneficial tips in order to write exceptional content for the targeted audiences.

About the Author

Visit sem-infotech.com for content writing services, ppc management and professional seo services.

Article source: http://www.articler.com/

Seriously, I had a dream about useful communication. I think by the time I tell this story it will seem pretty trivial and uninformative, but it’s a story I really feel like telling.

In my dream the other night, I was part of a team transferred to an existing department. I seemed to be in a hospital and I seemed to be a doctor, but not being a doctor nor working in a hospital, I’m not certain.

The existing department had a ritual of singing a particular song at the beginning of meetings and my team was expected to sing it. This was supposed to be some kind of team-building exercise. Unfortunately, no one on my team was familiar withe the song. And, like the national anthem at sporting events, only a few people around us seemed to be singing, and were mumbling. The whole affair seemed to be some weird Gregorian chant.

My team certainly did not feel like they were part of the larger group in this so-called team-building event; I chose to speak up about it. (Generally in my dreams, I’m unable to speak at all.)

I was very eloquent in my argument that if this was to be a team-building exercise then it would be more useful to ensure that the whole team be involved. The department could have:

• supplied my team with the lyrics to the song,
• ensured that their members knew the lyrics and would sing them clearly,
• chosen a song that would be familiar to a larger group, including my team, or
• found some other way to welcome us to the team.

This reminds me of my audience analysis post, without being directly related. It’s essential to any communication to know your audience; if anything, know what they already know and speak to what they don’t. And people will be much more engaged when the communication is obviously intended for them.

Image by Free-StockPhotos.com