Re: User oriented release notes

[Claus Schwarm <c schwarm gmx net>]

On Mon, 11 Sep 2006 16:53:38 +0200 (CEST)
"Murray Cumming" <murrayc murrayc com> wrote:

> Press releases are for a different audience (journalists), who are
> used to looking for the overview at the end, in the description of the
> organisations mentioned.

I think this is a misunderstanding.

The Inverted Pyramid Format is used by journalists to write newspaper
articles -- in other words: for a general audience.

Check the "Süddeutsche Zeitung" or the Times: They don't write like
this:

 "Ferrari is a car manufacturer located in Italy who got famous for
producing red sports cars. One of their most famous models was the
Testarossa, and they just released version 2.0."

Most readers would probably stop reading after the first sentence. It
simply wastes their time. 

Journalists thus write like this:

 "Ferrari just released version 2.0 of their most famous Testarossa
model. Specialized in produceing red sports cars, Ferrari is located in Italy."

The first version is more frustrating for people: They cannot skip
to the interesting part.


But the main point is: 99.9% of the release notes readers know what
GNOME is, I'm sure.

Think again about the Ferrari example: Imaging they made a version 2.0
of their Testarossa, and published the release notes on their webpage.

First: Would you have known about it? Probably not if you're not
already interested in Ferrari. You wouldn't visit their webpage daily.

Second: How would you have known about it? Probably by reading car
magazines, and you would know what Ferrari is if you're already reading
car magazines.

Third: Would you care to read Ferrari's release notes if you are not
interested in Ferrari in any way? No, because information about
Ferrari's new model is completely useless to you. You'd just be wasting
your time. And people in general are smart enought to ignore stuff
that's not interesting to them.

Thus, I'm sure that 99.99% of release notes readers have a sufficiently
close idea of what GNOME is, and for the remaining 0.01%, we can
provide a link to the 'About' section, somewhere in the first paragraph
of the notes, without boring all others.


Cheers,
Claus