http://tc.eserver.org/authors/Hoffman,_Michael A bibliography of works by Hoffman, Michael in the field of technical communication. en-us Copyright (c) 2005-08 by the EServer. All rights reserved. tclib-editorial@eserver.org (TC Library Editorial Board) webmaster@eserver.org (Geoffrey Sauer) http://tc.eserver.org/images/newlogo.gif http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Hoffman,_Michael http://tc.eserver.org/23266.html http://tc.eserver.org/23266.html Hypertext should be seen as augmenting the existing techniques of structure and navigation, not as superceding and replacing them. http://tc.eserver.org/23270.html http://tc.eserver.org/23270.html The philosophy of designing for usability. http://tc.eserver.org/23263.html http://tc.eserver.org/23263.html A collection of proposed new tools and features for adding structure to the Web. http://tc.eserver.org/23272.html http://tc.eserver.org/23272.html This article presents information design techniques that apply to web sites, help systems, hardcopy, and online documentation. When the standard document navigation structures are provided, readers can rapidly survey the scope of a web or document and jump to the pages of greatest interest. This article explains the nature and benefits of detailed outlines and recommends that web authors provide a reasonably detailed and structured outline of their web site. Surfing the web can be speeded up greatly by loading fewer irrelevant pages and by giving users an (additional) alternative to page-by-page exploration, thus avoiding the lost-in-hyperspace syndrome. The distinctions between overviews, tables of contents, full-text searches, database keyword searches, and topical indexes are explained, to justify providing multiple approaches for the reader. http://tc.eserver.org/23264.html http://tc.eserver.org/23264.html Turning 'help' systems and 'browsers' into robust structured-document viewers: the DocBrowser. http://tc.eserver.org/23267.html http://tc.eserver.org/23267.html The 'article' approach is better than the 'card' (or 'topic') approach. Concatenate your hypertext nodes and format the headings relatively, for increased comprehensibility of large amounts of conceptual material. Placing node bodies contiguously enhances visibility of information structure. http://tc.eserver.org/23265.html http://tc.eserver.org/23265.html Hypertext theory chronically assumes the strongly fragmented card model rather than the article model of presentation. http://tc.eserver.org/23269.html http://tc.eserver.org/23269.html Experimental new hierarchy-navigation UIs can hardly improve on the ancient outline. http://tc.eserver.org/23260.html http://tc.eserver.org/23260.html A site dedicated to the design of documents and viewers to support structured hypertext and easy skimming. The site covers information structuring, rapid navigation, and designing Help, Web pages, and documents. The intended audience for this site includes UI designers, technical writers, Web developers, Help authors, usability testers, and hypertext theorists. http://tc.eserver.org/23268.html http://tc.eserver.org/23268.html The Web did what no other hypertext system did (with the possible notable exception of HyperCard): it brought hypertext to the large public. http://tc.eserver.org/23271.html http://tc.eserver.org/23271.html With Netscape, when you first load this page, none of the following links are marked as 'already seen'. IE is very bad on this point: when you load this page, all the links below (internal page A NAME links) are marked as 'already seen'. That is, Netscape tracks internal page jumps; IE doesn't recognize them; in its history tracking, it lumps together all the links for a page as being identical with the overall page as a destination. This is a great example of a basic feature that is very much needed. http://tc.eserver.org/23273.html http://tc.eserver.org/23273.html GUI fragmentation is the greatest competitive weakness of UNIX. There is no standard Unix File Manager or Text Editor or Help -- that's shocking, in this age! Every Windows or Mac machine has a standard file manager and text editor and help system. The casual end user can accomplish elementary end-user tasks without encountering anything different from machine to machine.