Editing User guide (section)

== History ==
[[File:Antikythera mechanism clockface, 1st-2nd century BC, Greece (model).jpg|thumb|The user guide engraved into a model of the Antikythera Mechanism]]
User guides have been found with ancient devices. One example is the [[Antikythera mechanism|Antikythera Mechanism]],<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/06/15/antikythera_mechanism_inscriptions_deciphered/|title=Boffins decipher manual for 2,000-year-old Ancient Greek computer|access-date=2018-11-29|language=en}}</ref> a 2,000 year old Greek analogue computer that was found off the coast of the Greek island [[Antikythera]] in the year 1900. On the cover of this device are passages of text which describe the features and operation of the mechanism.

As the software industry was developing, the question of how to best document software programs was undecided. This was a unique problem for software developers, since users often became frustrated with current help documents.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|last=Chafin|first=Roy|title=Proceedings of the 1st annual international conference on Systems documentation - SIGDOC '82 |chapter=User manuals: What does the user really need? |date=January 1982|pages=36–39|doi=10.1145/800065.801307 |isbn=089791080X |s2cid=6435788 |doi-access=free}}</ref> Some considerations for writing a user guide that developed at this time include:

* the use of [[plain language]]<ref name=":0" />
* length and reading difficulty<ref name=":0" />
* the role of printed user guides for digital programs<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal|last=McKee|first=John|date=August 1986|title=Computer User Manuals in Print: Do They Have a Future?|journal=ACM SIGDOC Asterisk Journal of Computer Documentation|volume=12|issue=2 |pages=11–16|doi=10.1145/15505.15507 |s2cid=35615987 }}</ref>
* user-centered design<ref name=":1" />