Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Don’t look to the provider’s user manual; look to the rest of us.

I don’t know why it has taken me so long to write about this topic. Almost everyone already knows this, but for the record…

I ran into this situation again this week. I was learning how to use a large, complex piece of software (or as everyone calls them these days, “an app.”). The person showing me the app reminded me of a simple technique,

For help, Google the topic.

Of course. If you are using any app that has more than a thousand users, go to Google (or Bing or Yahoo or your favorite search engine).

We could go to the provider’s online help, but relatively few people at the provider actually use the app, so they have limited knowledge of how real users use the app and the questions we have.

We have the answers. We put the answers on the Internet. When in doubt, go to us.