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

Sorry, everybody, I’ve been silent a little too long these last couple of weeks. It has nothing to with you, I assure you.

I took a short holiday at the beginning of August. I had too many things to do to get ready to leave and then a bunch more to do when I got home again.But now I’m back and I have a couple of great articles that will be ready within the next day or two.

As you may (or may not) be aware, I also write and edit the Web Developer’s Blog, and I have some more articles over there to get posted over the next few days. But my web development work is what will be keeping me busy over the next few days.

I’m reviewing my social media strategy to apply it more consistently and appropriately across multiple networks. I need to keep my personal Facebook updates separate from my professional Facebook updates, but have my professional updates consistent with updates on my professional website (which I ignore all too often). As well, I’d like my regular microblogging to appear on Twitter and my personal Facebook page.

From the research I’ve done into numerous social media feed publishers (e.g., Tweetlater.com, Twitterfeed.com, Ping.fm), I think I’ll end up building my own scripts to post my updates through the mutiple channels. I hope it works out. Any suggestions?

Author: William Meikle

A lot of beginners go off the rails when they’ve got a nice clean sheet of paper or a blank screen in front of them and they’ve got to fill it with words – meaningful words.

The way to avoid the cold feeling of panic is to have a plan of action. The type of plan that works best for you depends on your personality. Some of you will make structured lists, with every small detail itemized and all T’s crossed. Or you may have a vague set of instructions, sometimes little more than remembering to have a beginning, middle and end. Others of you will find that the best way to work is just to start writing and see where it takes you.

The way to find what will work for you is to plan out some example pieces of work. You might never write them, but the practice will benefit you. For example, how would you go about writing an episode of your favourite TV show, or an article on a local photography exhibition, or a review of a best-seller? By writing a plan of approach, you’ll give yourself an idea of what the final piece of work would require. When I started writing short stories I used to deconstruct famous stories and plan how I’d re-write them.

The planning step also gives you a check as to whether or not you actually want to write the piece. And remember, if you plan not to have a plan, you’ve still decided on a plan. And don’t stop here.

It’s now time to plan your opening sentence. To get readers to keep reading you need a hook, something that will lead them in and keep them there until you’ve told them what they didn’t know they needed to know. Crime writers kill people, romance novelists have people get divorced, good writers hint at a conflict to come but hide it in the middle of something else. Journalists scream at you in huge type and article writers ask you rhetorical questions, all in the first five seconds of reading.

Go away and study the structure of some writing. Look at how writers grab you and reel you in like an expert fisherman.

And ask yourself, “How would I do that?”

Source: http://www.articlecircle.com/ – Free Articles Directory

About the Author:

William Meikle is currently planning his ninth novel. Read more articles at his website at http://www.williammeikle.com

You’re right, I don’t work in an office, I work from home. But I did work in an office and there was often something that kept me at work when I no longer needed to be there. And even at home, there are things that keep me at my desk when I’d rather be outside on a lawn chair.

I just read the latest post on Zen Habits (a guest post from Alexandra Levit) and it meshed pretty well with an article on Lifehacker from last week, so I thought I’d post a short summary of the two articles.

1. Get stuff done. Yeah, easier said than done, I know. But you can “nip procrastination in the bud” by “working in dashes” and “remind[ing] your future self.
   • Break larger tasks into smaller ones.
   • Complete smaller (easier) parts of the task to make the overall task more manageable.
   • Set a timer and work on a specific task for a specific period.
   • Set a reminder to spend time working on tasks that aren’t due until some time in the future.
2. Use productivity tools. Learn tricks for making Google searches better, use shortcut keys (Microsoft’s or Apple’s), or Google Docs or Google Calendar.
3. Doable to-do lists. ‘Nuff said.

There you have it. Three solid [summarized] ways to get stuff done. You really need to take a look at the articles and click through some of the links to really get an idea of tools that are out there to help you do this. I know I need it!