The writing of computer training materials for both home and business markets is a vast and growing industry. Because these new users are making more stringent demands on the kinds of training materials that they receive, technical writers no longer have the luxury of writing only for the system programmer and dealing only with the printed page. The growing need for quality training on computers is offering technical writers in the computer industry the chance to expand their fields of expertise. Three training media are compared—books, online tutorials, and videotape—along these criteria: basic organization, interaction patterns, tools, special development needs, special environmental needs, goals, type of information taught, and suitability as a training medium. Finally suggestions are made about how practicing technical writers can learn about these new media.

Writing better computer user documentation teaches good documentation practices by means of a process model that reflects current industry procedures. The book is more philosophical than its highly prescriptive and pedantic predecessors, and its emphasis is on writing for the computer industry, not on writing in general with computers thrown in as an afterthought. Its major audience is data processing professionals, most specifically practicing technical writers, information planners, and writing managers, although the book might well find its way into college classrooms in some of the burgeoning masters' programs in technical writing.