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Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Just So You Know
I’m continuing to work on the MS Outlook documentation.
And I still hate Microsoft.
Let me just say that when I click on a help file, I want something useful RIGHT NOW I don’t want to have to wait for my browser to load up and give me the option to watch some stupid video that I don’t have the interest in watching because it won’t answer my question.
All I want is to know what proxy access is called in Microsoft. But no, those terms are unrecognized and provide no useful assistance AT ALL.
Why is this so difficult? WHY?! WHY?! Why are their help files absolutely none at all?
(sigh)
ADDENDUM the First:
You can share calendar information with other people by using Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 in many ways.
I don’t think I understand what that sentence means. The more I think about it, the worse it gets.
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March 4th, 2008 at 10:12 am
I’m fairly certain it has something to do with penguins.
::running away now::
March 4th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Don’t forget about the penguin teeth Nathan!
March 4th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Yeah, MS documentation and the help system have declined over the years.
Part of the problem, I think, is the user, most people don’t use Help, or can’t be bothered to look in the Help file (hmmm, maybe we need to update the phrase RTFM to RTFHF, oh wait…). So, in the interest of cost effectiveness, MS first decided to delete in the paper manual, and now the embedded manual is going away slowly – being replaced with idiot-o-grams and video. People simply can’t be bothered to know how their systems and software actually work – this is equivalent to driving a car, and not knowing how to change a tire.
The rest of the problem, I think, is the tech writers. They’re computer geeks, and worse, they’re MS insiders. They start from a series of assumptions – i.e. they think everybody who reads the manual and help files has the same level of understanding they do. Wrong. What they need is a 74 year old man with bi-focals and a deep seated fear of computers to do their proof-reading. MS also needs to adopt industry standard terminology – or build their search engines with enough AI to make the connection between accepted terms and what MS has actually decided to name the function in this build.
And I agree with you, I have no idea what that phrase is supposed to mean.
March 4th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
It means that there is a rectal-fitting function so that Microsoft can….
And the former Marine in my lab made sure all the Chinese grad students in our lab knew what that acronym meant.
March 4th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Jim,
MS help files are worse than you can imagine. In our classes we ALWAYS teach people what the different parts of the screen are called, so when we get calls we can be told “my standard toolbar” disappeared, as opposed to “I don’t know where the long thing at the top of my window went” (not that we don’t get those calls).
With the latest revisions I usually had to delve deep into the help files to figure out what the hell this new widget was called, and as for having a help file that labels all the parts of the screen? Forget it. Not happening.
As far as the writing, some is good, but much is along the lines of what I quoted there.
And it makes me MAD, because crap like that is why people don’t bother to read the documentation WE put out, because they automatically distrust software instructions. (Hello? That’s why we write our own damned documentation! READ IT!)
I do know that when my husband was getting his CS degree, every class required them to write documentation for their code. Unfortunately, they usually did it to turn it in, and quality tended to… lack.
And are people willing to hire people who can write to do this? HA! Let’s say that I lucked into my position and now they have me they’ll keep me, but the documentation we had before I took over? Forget it. They had whoever had free time write it, and that’s how it read. I think people tend to use textbooks as the template for user manuals–throw as much technical jargon in as possible, assume a high end user, and everyone else? too bad.
Yeah. In case you hadn’t noticed, technology is one subject likely to set me off.
March 4th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
You’re looking for meaning, Michelle, where none was actually intended. ;)
Many years ago I worked with a major defense contractor as vendor. When they’d bring engineers over from Pakistan or Korea, they’d put them to work for 3 months in the technical writing dept to learn English, then they’d shuffle them into their technical specialty.
Confidence inspiring.
March 4th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Jeri,
That explains *so* much.
It’d be funny–except it’s not.
March 5th, 2008 at 7:13 am
If you actually distracted a competent engineer from his or her work, the manager would lose productivity, and hence bonus. So you find the guy that you’ve been collecting a file on so that he can’t sue when you can his ass, and assign the writing job to him. It’s a win-win for the engineering manager. No loss in productivity, and if the troublemaker screws up the documentaiton bad enough, that’s one more item in the pink-slip file.
I think managers in charge of a product ought to lose $100 in bonus for every complaint received about the documentation, then they’d have some incentive to put someone half-decent on the job. It’s amazing how people do what they’re incented to do and don’t do what doesn’t count. As my HR prof said, you get what you measure.
March 5th, 2008 at 8:14 am
Thing is, I don’t think the documentation that goes to the general public SHOULD be written by engineers. I think it needs to be written by people like me, who are good with software, and know how to translate geek to English and vice versa.
Won’t happen I know, but a gal can dream can’t she?