A problem many employees have is to make incorrect assumptions about their customers.
You can start to understand misconceptions in your writing department in the following ways:
- Research the writers.
- Work backwards from defects in the docs.
- Understand the types of misconceptions that typically occur.
The most common and pernicious assumption that writers make about customers is: "The customer is just like me." Often this assumption is a stand-in due to a void of knowledge. Sometimes it is more ingrained than that.
Another very common misconception is that customers are more focused on the software product than they actually are. In most cases, customers use a range of software products during the day, each with its own terminology, metaphors and processes. They might only use your product once a week or month, in which case they might not remember details between uses. Few of them will be expert users of the documentation, so you shouldn't expect them to remember a caveat you posted in the introduction or a definition you stuck in a glossary.
Another common misconception occurs at companies where developers provide customer support when problems are too difficult for support staff. The side-effect of this activity is that the developers start to think of the problems they solve as the norm and consequently over-emphasize the edge cases. They pass this bias on to writers, resulting in content that confuses most readers.
User research has two parts: the research and the dissemination of findings. Understanding misconceptions is especially important to the latter part. For example, personas should be designed to provide writers with user characteristics, but should also attempt to correct false assumptions. The pernicious thing about misconceptions is that they are internalized; frequently people don't even know that they're making the assumption. We don't always have to point out that their assumptions are in error; often it is best to just provide better information.
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