Dave, Unless the vendors produce podcasts they will miss a growing percentage of their audience.
My experience is 60-85% of the software audience just doesn't read. They expect others to explain the material to them. On Thu, 9 Feb 2006 15:36:40 +0000, Dave Salt wrote: >I think the responsibility for informing people of new software >functionality should fall primarily on the software vendor, secondarily on >company management, and finally (and to a much lesser extent) on the actual >individual who uses the software. > >In the case of management, making employees aware of changes can be >accomplished in various ways, whether it be as formal as a training class >or as simple as a memo. It should be part of someones job description >(e.g. the systems programmer who installs each new release or any other >knowledgable individual) to ensure this is done. > >In the case of a software vendor, I believe all of the following should be >mandatory: > >1) A section at the start of the user guide/reference manual should cover >all new product features. >2) A tutorial, available directly from the primary tutorial, should cover >all new product features. >3) When a user first enters a new product version, they should >automatically see a message saying "This is a new version, would you like >to see the new features tutorial now or defer to later?" > >In addition, if there are ways to highlight new features (such as >displaying a message the first time a certain option is selected), that >should be done as well. Field-level help, context sensitive tutorials, >messages that actually convey meaningful information (etc) all go without >saying. In other words, vendors should do absolutely everything in their >power to make their software as easy to use as humanly possible. Agreed (see above). -- Tom Schmidt Madison, WI ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
