Msg: 2330 *Conference*

04-11-92 01:07:49

From: LEX JENKINS

To : RICHARD HANSON

Subj: REPLY TO MSG #2314 (EDUCATION?)

Rick,
 
Sounds terrific.  Most of us learn and retain more through visual media; I know
I do.  Much as I admire good writing, it serves best as a complement to good
illustrations, in many forms.  I've learned MS-DOS through interactive CD
video.  I've learned tricky guitar licks that had eluded me for years by
watching videos of Stevie Ray Vaughn.    On a more mundane level, but more to
the point, are manuals for software.  While Lucid, for example, is a somewhat
more powerful and flexible program than Multiplan, Multiplan's documentation is
superior because it is more visual, using illustrations accompanied by
pertinent and relatively brief text, with lots of "white space".  It's a shame
PCSG didn't pay more attention to the mundane stuff, because they had a good
product.
 
Another example: although the manual for extRAM could be better organized and
illustrated, it was illustrated well (albeit with dot matrix graphics) where it
was crucial - installation!  The diagrams make it very clear what could have
been a tricky installation if there had been no diagrams.