February 2, 2007
As I handle a good deal of the technical support calls around here, I'm constantly amazed at the questions that I get where the answers to these questions are in the documentation. My typical mantra has been: RTFM! I've been reading a lot lately on usability, especially in the realm of web applications. Influences include Steve Krug's book Don't Make Me Think, the 37signals book Getting Real, as well as the Creating Passionate Users blog. These readings have been causing me to rethink my mantra, and question my possibly old-school thinking that good documentation prevents support calls. The truth is that users don't want to read the docs - they just want to use the product. Well, that's not even entirely true - they want the product to just do its job, and get out of the way, so the user can…
Users don't *want* to RTFM
February 2, 2007
As I handle a good deal of the technical support calls around here, I'm constantly amazed at the questions that I get where the answers to these questions are in the documentation. My typical mantra has been: RTFM! I've been reading a lot lately on usability, especially in the realm of web applications. Influences include Steve Krug's book Don't Make Me Think, the 37signals book Getting Real, as well as the Creating Passionate Users blog. These readings have been causing me to rethink my mantra, and question my possibly old-school thinking that good documentation prevents support calls. The truth is that users don't want to read the docs - they just want to use the product. Well, that's not even entirely true - they want the product to just do its job, and get out of the way, so the user can…