2.5.1. Obstacles

The primary obstacles that good documentation must overcome ultimately derive from the needs of the reader. The reader’s purpose is to achieves success with your product (e.g. a machine, or a tool, which most software is).

Two obstacles to this achievement are:

1. For new readers, presumably reading your documentation in sequence, the reader has limited time to achieve initial successes with your product before he gives up and starts looking elsewhere, either to other documentation, and if that’s not available, to another product.

2. For readers who are trying to answer a specific question about your product, once again, the reader has limited time to get it answered before he gives up, and again starts looking elsewhere.