Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!microsoft!delaniej
From: delaniej@microsoft.UUCP (Delanie Alcorn-Jones 3/1009)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Microsoft Word Documentation
Keywords: Word, ASCII, documentation
Message-ID: <7246@microsoft.UUCP>
Date: 4 Aug 89 22:45:13 GMT
References: <927@key.COM> <8400136@m.cs.uiuc.edu> <4046@udccvax1.acs.udel.EDU> <7209@microsoft.UUCP> <4269@tekig4.LEN.TEK.COM>
Reply-To: delaniej@microsoft.UUCP (Delanie Alcorn-Jones)
Organization: Microsoft Corp., Redmond WA
Lines: 98


	Wow!  You like to start out with the difficult stuff, don't you?!?!
	You brought up some really good points and ones that we
	continually face.  Well here goes: 

Brian Diehm says:
>     My first suggestion for Delanie is that if Word is to have a dictionary-
>style reference book, it must have entries for each and every command that is
>listed in the "Commands..." dialog.

	This is a tough one.  One one hand, you do want an entry for every
	command in the product; but, on the other hand, the Commands command
	added many esoteric commands to the product that would have greatly
	enlarged the documentation if each had a separate entry. Massive
	documentation raises two flags for us:  user perceptions and 
	international translations.

	First, users often relate big manuals with products that are hard
	to use.  We are trying to strike the balance between documenting
	everything and too much documentation.  Second, internationally 
	translationed books grow an average of 30%!  That's makes 
	our large manuals absolutely huge in other languages!  

	I do agree that the features should have been covered in some 
	manner in the documentation; however, many of the undocumented 
	commands in the Commands command came from suggestions from beta 
	testers. At that time the documentation was too far along to add 
	new information.  (Printed documentation has a fairly large lead 
	time due to production, typesetting, and printing times.  This 
	means that the documentation is frozen weeks before the software.)  

	We felt that some of the suggestions from the beta testers were 
	important enough to add to the product even if we couldn't reflect 
	them in the documentation. We did document them in the readme file 
	and have been trying to incorporate them into the printed 
	documentation where possible in subsequent reprints.

Brian Diehm says:
>     The second suggestion for documentation is that the tutorial materials,
>though fairly good, fail to develop a true "mental model" of what is going on.
>This takes a fair amount of research into devising the desired mental model of
>the product, and then a fair amount of research into devising a proper sequenced
>method of building that model, and then a fairly simple process of writing to
>that sequence.

	This is a very good point!  One of the things we've realized about
	alphabetic references is that there's really no entry point for
	users -- no beginning, no end, no overall view.  We are addressing 
	this in our research and are usability testing new ways to 
	present information to solve this problem.  

	Another related area is that of understanding the way Word thinks
	and acts.  Word has many quirks that if you don't know, can slow
	you down.  For example, the fact that Word works by the "select 
	then do" process -- that is, you must select text or graphics before 
	you can do something to it -- confuses many users until they
	realize it.  We also have some ideas for ways to address this.
	Only our usability tests will tell for sure if we're on the right
	track!

Brian Diehm says:
>     The third suggestion for documentation is one where I will not suggest a
>fix, but merely point out a problem. There are many many degrees of freedom
>in Word, some Mac-like and many that are carryovers from (retch, my opinion)
>PCs. In all this feature-richness, you the user may be completely unaware of
>just the feature you are looking for. For example, I just found out about the
>Fast Save Enable command, which lets me DEFEAT fast saves. I think it's more
>than wonderful that I can defeat them (I never trusted them) BUT I was unaware
>of the feature until it became general user "lore." I need to be able to know
>about the feature before I can use it.

	Another tough one!  One of the sad things we've come to realize
	in the last year (sad to writers anyway) is that most users do
	not "read" documentation.  In most (?) cases, users learn by 
	experimentation, from their peers, or by looking up specific 
	information to accomplish the task at hand.  

	So even when we document a feature, many users won't know about
	it unless someone tells them about it or they have a defined need
	for it and look it up.  When you're looking up something, you'll
	often have to try 2 or 3 terms/names before you hit on something
	that directs you to the right area.  This is even more complicated
	by Word's rich array of features and some feature names.  

	So I guess what I'm trying to say is that we are looking into
	this area but I don't know if we'll ever be able to satisfy
	100% of the users in this area because of the diversity of our
	audience and their learning styles.

Again, thanks for the feedback.  I'm passing all of the Usenet feedback
on to our User Education group so we can all learn from it.  I'll be 
answering some more global issues on the net and some of the more specific
questions or comments via email.  I'm really pleased with the response
so far!!!


Delanie Alcorn-Jones
uunet!microsoft!delaniej