Exactly right, Sam. TR blew it AGAIN!
Another unnecessary download! This should have been an ARTICLE; no need to DOWNLOAD it. And like Sam says, the feedback link in a PDF document is worthless. COME ON, TR! Get your download act together! Readers have been telling you this for weeks.
Oh, the content of the download. Yeah, that gets forgotten because of the format. But it really left off the most important aspect of good documentation: write from the user's perspective. That's more than just considering the audience. It involves thinking of what job function they will be performing at the time the software is being used and what questions they will need the documentation to answer.
And don't (just) document the obvious. I don't know how often I have pulled down an option list in some software to find uncertain terms that needed more explanation, only to launch the help module and see field-level instructions that say "Choose A, B, C, or D" - the same list of options shown in the droplist. EXPLAIN what the options terms MEAN. What is the IMPACT of choosing A as opposed to B. Gack! The user can SEE the list. If they don't know that it's a choice field, they won't be able to find the Help either.
