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To:
Robin Medeiros, Director of Communications
From: Steven J. Joles, Team Lead
Date: 07/12/2002
Re: Supplements to improve Document
Usability
Our clients have reported back to us
that some of our documents have been difficult to manage. After
review of their complaints several things stand out.
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Findings
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Clients are having a difficult time storing
our documents. The first and last pages get torn off often.
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Clients complain that they often have to read
through several paragraphs just to ascertain what the document is about.
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Locating specific information in our documents
is very difficult.
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Clients often want to refer back to a specific
chart, table or figure and have to search through the document to find it.
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The length of some documents precludes them
from being read thoroughly.
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Conclusions
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- Most documents become all but useless once
information is lost.
- If a client feels reading our document is
wasting his time he will go elsewhere for his information.
- Information that can’t be located quickly
might as well not even be included.
- Very long documents are rarely read cover to
cover. Especially strictly informational ones.
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Recommendations
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Our documentation has some of the best content anywhere but our clients
aren’t able to fully utilize it. With a few modifications and additions
our documents will be better organized and easier to manage than anything
our clients have ever used.
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- We should put a sturdy cover on our longer documents.
- Titles need to be placed on all of our documents.
- All documents should have a table of contents attached.
- A listing of charts, tables, diagrams and figures should follow
the table of contents for easy reference.
- We should provide an informative abstract so our clients with less
time will still be able to gain the knowledge they need without spending
excessive amounts of time.
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