Subject: Re: Stupid Human Tricks

From: [email-masked] (Larry Smith)
Date: 2 Oct 1995 15:26:59 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Michael Justice) writes:

>Knocks the whole mess over into the sink and opens the water valve to
>flush it all.  (Good move!)  The next sentence in the instructions:

>	"Do so slowly or the solution may overheat and explode."

>Moral:  ALWAYS READ THE INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY, IN FULL, FIRST. :-)

Correct moral: NEVER ASSUME THE WRITER KNEW WHAT HE WAS TALKING
ABOUT.  Coming from the computer world, I've had more than my
share of troubles trying to sort out users totally mystified by
a "manual" written by someone even more clueless than they were.
Technical writing is an art - you need to _presume_ people will
misinterpret what you write, and try to anticipate such mistakes.
Adding cautions after the fact and failing to re-edit so they
_preceed_ the problem is a classic "failyah...to...commun'cate".

-- 
Larry Smith - My opinions only.  Killfile [email-masked] & [email-masked]
The attempt to justify an evil deed has perhaps more pernicious consequences
than the evil deed itself. The justification of a past crime is the planting
and cultivation of future crimes. - Eric Hoffer  Digital Unix: 64 bit _now_.