FAQS

In the olden days, when software came on a five inch floppy drive, it usually came with instructions in the form of a manual.  If you bought a premium product it would be a proper bound document, otherwise it would be a text file to print out on your dot matrix printer.

Then the instructions became thinner and thinner, with more reliance on the intuitiveness of the software, as measured by a sixteen year old programmer with the communication skills of the desk his PC rested on.  Clearly there was a gap; users, especially those of us old enough to be able to read and write and generally incapable of working out how to use a word processor purely by use of symbols, were revolting.  And despite that being an awkward and embarrassing situation for the software vendors they had to do something: their target audience didn't have the money to buy the software, so they had to pander to the solvent brigade until their chosen generation matured enough to start earning.

So the concept of the FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) was born.  Essentially a good idea - some parts of the software would be intuitive and would need little guidance.  A good example is with Windows 95 (yeah, I go back a long way) and the Start button.  Want to begin doing something? Well push Start, even a moron can work that out.  Want to stop using your computer?  Well, we all know now that pushing Start was the way to go, but I guess that's a tad counter intuitive for some.

But the problem for software houses, with their need for speed to market, is that you don't get questions asked frequently until someone uses the software.  And until it is released, generally that means software developers who don't mind quirky interfaces and entering numbers in hexadecimal until the calculator plug-in is out of beta, so their concept of what might be difficult to figure out is likely to differ from us mortal people. Their standard FAQ for a word processor would be:

Q: how do I modulate a parsed syntax without reverting to a standard DIV/X error?

A: Maintain a dual standard parsed pipe, avoiding a recursive query when in editor mode.

Which may be accurate, but hardly useful.

The only people left in the product chain pre-release apart from the juvenile programmers are generally the marketers.  To be fair, these are generally more mature - hell, some are in their early twenties - and you can't accuse them of not being computer literate.  I challenge anyone to find their way around a bonus calculation spreadsheet faster than a software salesman.  But anything else is just so boring - you can't learn a software system while looking potential customers in the eye, or just looking in the mirror, come to that.

Hence the marketers write the initial FAQs.  They know the techie versions aren't going to be popular, and I can't fault them on that.  But their attempts tend to make my blood boil.  Bear in mind, given we're all a little conditioned to try and work it out ourselves these days, we're only going to delve into FAQs when we are stuck.  Here's the standard first FAQ:

Q: Where can I buy more of your fabulous products?

A: Click on here and follow the easy seventeen step process to lose your statutory rights and credit rating.

So how about my suggestions for FAQs?  These are a bit universal, so you can use them in any product.  You can also add some product specific FAQs if you think that's what the buying public might want:

Q: Why have you passed my bank details to an anonymous Russian web address?

A: This is a standard anti-money laundering technique.  We send your details to be matched against a list held by the Russian Mafia; if your details are not recognised then we add them to speed up future transactions, otherwise we use their records to verify if you still have any funds left in the account - to be fair, you shouldn't if they already have the details.

Q: The software doesn't run, what should I do?

A: Is the power turned on?  No, honestly, you'd be surprised how many people blame the software when it's just the computer that isn't working.  Look around you - if you are in darkness and the kettle has just stopped you might have a power cut.  Please note, software corruption due to power spikes, which often precede a power cut, is not covered by the warranty.

Q: How can I be accessing FAQs in a power cut situation?

A: Why would you want to?  Chill, put the kettle on, drink some tea and wait for the power to come back on.

Q: Where can I buy some of your competitors' products?

A: I think you'll find that the recent power cut corrupted your browser's ability to search for our competitors' products.

Q: I find that I lose the second half of any sentence I write.  What is causing this?

A: It's an acknowledged bug that will be fixed in version 9.7.3 (we're currently in version 2.1.4).  To overcome the problem, push the

Q: The last sentence wasn't complete, could you repeat it?

A: Yes.

Q: The calculator returns an answer in hexadecimal, how do I convert it to normal numbers?

A: You mean base ten? Then for God's sake say what you mean.  Right, first off we suggest you learn to count in base sixteen.  Failing that there are some routines on the web that convert Hex to Decimal, but you may find that your browser's ability to find them is compromised by the recent power cuts/surges.  If you are just trying to work out your commission/mileage claim/expenses then click here for an Excel spreadsheet.

Q: None of the hyperlinks in this FAQ work, why?

A: You'd have to ask someone from the programming team.  Or any other sixteen year old.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The real question, infrequently asked, is 'where can I get books written by Ray Sullivan?  Well, the best answer we could find is 'on Amazon, in eBook and paperback format.'

Whether your taste is adventure, science fiction of comedy there is a book or two for you from the range and all at very affordable prices.

Now, that's what a FAQ should look like.