I do not believe in catering to the lowest common denominator.
I understand that training materials are there to help and you need to consider the lcd, but I do not believe in catering to the lcd.
We have someone at work who needs such prescriptive instructions to the level that you cannot say:
'Here is a screenshot of the screen you will be working in for this stage of the work.'
'These are the fields that are required, all others are optional and to be used as-needed.'
^ average person can go OK, great. I can work with this (and every other user in the scrimmage HAS).
She is the type of user who wants:
- Here is a step-by-step slideshow of how to get to this screen in the tool.
- Here is a screenshot with each required field highlighted.
- Here is a detailed example of what to fill into each required field with a reminder that you do not need to save after each.
- Here is a detailed example of what you might fill into each optional field, with extensive details as to when you will or will not need the optional fields, and reasoning why the are optional. And a reminder that you do not need to save after each.
- Here is how to save, even though it is exactly the same as every other screen in the software.
- Here is how to submit, even though it is exactly the same as every other screen in the software.
I have argued against this.
Vehemently.
Because I know people.
I know that this will make the training material so long that most users will take one look at it, go 'nope' and just hassle the support/training team for every single question they have (thus causing more work for everyone).
It will turn 'average capable users' into 'lowest common denominator' users themselves.
This sort of manual is how you end up with companies where there's 'Oh, go ask Bob, he knows how to do all those weird things in the software' and you find out that Bob actually read the document and no one else did and every single answer is in there but no one ever reads it because of how ridiculously repetitively detailed it is...
...because it catered to Karen, who rather than just put the effort into doing her job, cried until someone held her hand and did it for her.