On Wed, 2011-07-27 at 06:14 +1000, Jean Hollis Weber wrote: > On Tue, 2011-07-26 at 16:52 +0300, David Nelson wrote: > > Carrying on my train of thought... > > > > For instance, in our guides, we provide very generic information > > targeting a general user base. So how about special guides targeting > > particular user bases? > > > > A guide, covering all the LibO components for students writing a > > thesis? For a small business or SOHO looking to its admin and > > accounting needs? For engineers working on a design project? For a > > school's course needs? Etc... The books would be backed-up by > > downloadable or CD-ROM-based accompanying templates, spreadsheets, > > databases, presentations, etc. > > > > I think this is the kind of stuff that might well sell well in book > > form. And imagine if we had school and university text books to > > offer... that might notch up a bit more in sales, too... > > > I totally agree with you about the desirability of targeted guides or > tutorials; I've been advocating them for years, both here and at OOo. > Again, the problem is finding people with the combination of background > knowledge, writing skills, and time to put together suitable work.
Just to make clear to everyone what I mean by "background knowledge": when writing for a specific audience, knowing what that audience's actual needs are (what specific tasks they may wish to perform), and knowing the terminology used by that audience, is very helpful for creating relevant information at the right level... and in many cases much more important than simply knowing how to use the software. I have seen a lot of answers on the OOo forums from people who clearly did not understand the question they were answering, because the question is on a topic outside their background knowledge; so the answer may be "correct" (in terms of how the software works) but irrelevant because it does not actually answer the question. I've also seen this problem frequently in third-party books. Of course, a team of people can often do the job better than one person: some members of the team may know the questions (and possibly the answers), while others may know how to achieve the necessary results using the software but not be skilled in writing in English, and yet others might be better able to do the writing once they have the necessary information. --Jean -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to documentation+h...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/documentation/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
