#20287
Building the Treasure House: Creating Knowledge Bases on the World-Wide Web 
Web knowledge bases offer an excellent platform for delivering technical documentation and customer support information. They also represent an area of great opportunity for technical communicators to expand their skills, satisfy their customers, and create value for their employers or clients. This session explores the components of a web knowledge base and the tasks involved in planning and building one.
Massa, Jack A. STC Proceedings (1998). Articles>Documentation>Online>Web Design
#26466
Information Layering: Providing Need-Based Information 
Information Layering is not new, but it has acquired a new dimension through modern technical and interactive possibilities. Even as of now, this technique can be used to make HTML-help considerably more user friendly.
Achtelig, Marc. indoition engineering (2005). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design>Online
#27088
Issues with Adobe FrameMaker Print to PDF
An issue that has come up over and over again on several FrameMaker and Acrobat/PDF email lists as well on the corresponding Adobe User-to-User forums is that of creation of PDF files. FrameMaker 5.5.6 and 6 have what looks like a convenient feature that is supposed to allow you to create PDF files via simply saving the document as a PDF file. I have gone on record as advising end-users not to use this approach for reliable creation of PDF files from FrameMaker documents under Windows and MacOS with FrameMaker 6 and earlier. Why do I most vociferously offer this advice and why doesn't the problem get fixed? And how SHOULD you create PDF files from FrameMaker?
Isaacs, Dov. Bright Path Solutions (2004). Articles>Document Design>Online>Adobe FrameMaker
#27654
Non-Fatal Errors: Creating Usable, Effective Error Messages
It's often easy to identify what kinds of error messages don't help users, but it can be tricky to avoid them, and even more of a challenge to create the opposite: error messages that give users a clear indication of the problem, offer information to help them fix it, and provide tips on how to avoid the same situation in the future. This paper details the steps involved in creating understandable, helpful error messages, and suggests ways of communicating the value of good error messages to managers and executives.
Wilska, Emily. WritersUA (2004). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design>Online
#20551
Restructuring Online Documentation for the World Wide Web
Technical communicators around the world are turning to the World Wide Web us their primary delivery agent for on-line documentation. The transition from older forms of on-line documentation to HTML-based documents pre - sents new challenges in every phase of the documentation process: document creation, layout, access, and especially hypermedia capability The constant development of new web tools presents an even greater challenge for an organization seeking to stay abreast of technology with an ever decreasing budget. This panel will outline the basic steps in migrating to the web while focusing on one organization’s solution to meeting the challenges of restructuring its on-line documentation for web migration.
Goode, Christina M., Jennifer Campbell and David Hale. STC Proceedings (1996). Articles>Documentation>Web Design>Online
#26418
Using Perception in Managing Unstructured Documents
Over the last ten years, the increased availability of documents in digital form has contributed significantly to the immense volume of knowledge and information available to computer users. The World Wide Web has become the largest digital library available, with more than one billion unique indexable web pages. Yet, due to their dynamic nature, fast growth rate, and unstructured format, it is increasingly difficult to identify and retrieve valuable information from these documents. More importantly, the usefulness of an unstructured document is dependent upon the ease and efficiency with which the information is retrieved. In this paper, we define an unstructured document as a "general" document that is without a specific format e.g., plain text. Whereas, a document divided into sections or paragraph tags is referred to as semi-structured e.g., a formatted text document or a web page.
Cheng, Ching Kang and Xiaoshan Pan. ACM Crossroads (2004). Articles>Document Design>Online>Cognitive Psychology
#10341
Where Is the Instruction in Online Help Systems? 
One of the ironic things about online help systems is that they are very often not helpful and even increase the user's frustration and stress level. This increased frustration sometimes results in the rejection of the software. One solution is to increase the effectiveness of online help systems by designing them from an instructional design perspective. Some of the things we can provide users include: imperative, task-focused procedures; graphic feedback; access to redundant instructions; links to tutorial practice; philosophical and conceptual explanations for 'why' they are completing specific tasks.
Pratt, Jean A. Technical Communication Online (1998). Articles>Documentation>Instructional Design>Online
#34294
Writing for Kindle is like writing for print, the Web, and mobile devices combined; optimal usability means optimizing content for each platform's special characteristics.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2009). Articles>Document Design>Usability>Online
