Great Technical Writing: Improve Document Searches

| Total Words: 724

OVERVIEW

Searches in User Documents (manuals, etc.) often fail because the Reader uses different words for a concept than the author uses. Since the Reader’s words do not appear in the document, the document search mechanism cannot find them, resulting in frustration. This article describes a User-friendly technique for improving searches, without having to change the Users’ behavior or the search software.

YOUR READERS’ WORDS

People use the words that they know when they speak, write, or search. It’s folly to try to force the Reader to use the writer’s terminology; the Reader simply might not know the “proper” term. Forced to use unknown words, the Reader will find the User Document to be arrogant, or at least difficult to use.

For example, a User Manual for a word processing program will probably use the word “formatting” when dealing with character fonts and size, as well as page layout. But suppose that your Reader uses the word “appearance” to refer to these topics. How can we get the search mechanism to provide the correct result if the Reader searches for...

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