http://www.isnare.com/?s=author&a=Barry+Millman Writing Barry Millman Mon, 12 Nov 2007 00:00:00 +0800 http://www.isnare.com/?aid=200085&ca=Writing The User-Product Life Cycle (U-PLC) is a powerful tool for the User Document writer. Use the U-PLC to generate the high-level topics for your User Document. THE USER-PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE (U-PLC) Usually, when we think of a Product Life Cycle, we think in terms of the development and production of the... Writing Barry Millman Mon, 24 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0800 http://www.isnare.com/?aid=186378&ca=Writing OVERVIEW In your User Documentation, you direct your Reader to perform tasks with your product. If you don't tell your Reader what to expect when performing those tasks, you will have a baffled Reader, resulting in dissatisfaction and expensive calls to technical support. EXAMPLE: REVERSE OSMOSIS WA... Writing Barry Millman Wed, 29 Aug 2007 00:00:00 +0800 http://www.isnare.com/?aid=179467&ca=Writing OVERVIEW You're a non-writer who has just been assigned to write the User Documentation for your company's new product. Your overwhelming emotion is fear, perhaps with some anger. With any new activity there will be some anxiety. Writing may have added anxiety because of your writing experience whil... Writing Barry Millman Tue, 07 Aug 2007 00:00:00 +0800 http://www.isnare.com/?aid=173139&ca=Writing 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 (attribute... Writing Barry Millman Wed, 04 Jul 2007 00:00:00 +0800 http://www.isnare.com/?aid=164630&ca=Writing OVERVIEW Most heading are designed to entice us to read further. Headings in User Documents should enable your Reader to decide whether or not to continue reading that section. Use effective headings to make it easy for your Reader to access and understand your User Document. MOST HEADINGS ARE FO... Writing Barry Millman Wed, 13 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0800 http://www.isnare.com/?aid=158836&ca=Writing OVERVIEW People are visual creatures. They look at your product, and see, for example, a button or display. They want to find out about that control or indicator. A Visual Index is a simple but powerful document access tool that enables your Readers to find the information that they want. This artic... Writing Barry Millman Tue, 15 May 2007 00:00:00 +0800 http://www.isnare.com/?aid=150775&ca=Writing OVERVIEW For small companies, creating their product's User Documentation in-house, provides benefits to the company, to (idle) staff, and to the product. This article describes the benefits and some downsides of producing User Documents in-house. THREE OPTIONS If you have no in-house writing staff... Writing Barry Millman Sun, 22 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0800 http://www.isnare.com/?aid=144321&ca=Writing OVERVIEW Lost or garbled information is a terrible waste. Especially if it's the information you gathered from an interview and must now write into your User Document. Here's how to prevent that waste. THE SITUATION You had an interview with a Subject Matter Expert (SME, someone who has the inform... Writing Barry Millman Sat, 31 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +0800 http://www.isnare.com/?aid=138138&ca=Writing OVERVIEW Stop confusing your Reader with the words you use. Your Reader is trying his/her best to understand how your product works without having to figure out your writing. Here are some writing guidelines to help you stop baffling your Reader. SAME CONCEPT: SAME WORDS User Documents are not meant... Writing Barry Millman Fri, 23 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +0800 http://www.isnare.com/?aid=135494&ca=Writing OVERVIEW Searches in User Documents (manuals, etc.) often fail because the Reader uses different words for a concept than the author uses. Since the Reader's words do not appear in the document, the document search mechanism cannot find them, resulting in frustration. This article describes a User-...