#29971
Can DITA be used as a Help authoring technology? Superficially, of course it can! The DITA Open Toolkit includes an HTML Help transformer, an Eclipse Help transformer, and an HTML transformer (which can also generate some sort of Table of Contents). So isn't it obvious then? DITA is perfect for Help authoring. Or is it? Looking a bit deeper, it's not so obvious. Can I include context-hooks in my content? Can I specify a popup link? Can I build a modular Help system? If I can't, then DITA is probably not suitable for Help.
Self, Tony. HyperWrite (2007). Articles>Documentation>XML>DITA
#29972
Two of the oft-quoted benefits of DITA, the Darwin Information Typing Architecture, are 'single-sourcing' and 'content re-use'. These benefits do not only apply to the commonly-accepted definition of technical documents, but to many other forms of documents from outside the technical communicator's realm.
Self, Tony. HyperWrite (2007). Articles>Documentation>XML>DITA
#23401
Do Not Forget Bibliographical Data in Technical Documentation!
Information products, e.g. manuals, drawings etc, must, besides the technical message, contain certain formal data, which too often is left out. Proper formal data contributes to good order and favours the producer as well as the user of information products.
Rullgård, Åke. TC-FORUM (1999). Articles>Documentation>Style Guides
#22164
Do Technical Writers Need a Help Applications Course? 
Weber State University is in the process of developing a major in Professional & Technical Writing (PTW). Currently, students enroll as English majors with an Emphasis in PTW, which consists of four courses in PTW that students take in addition to other English courses. The minor consists of the same PTW courses plus two interdisciplinary classes, which are determined in consultation with an advisor. The problem is that students who wish to do PTW must take the same number of literature classes as other English majors. Often they do not receive instruction in document design, other than a cursory treatment in the service course. A full major would better prepare students to enter the job market without losing connections to critical theory and humanistic approaches to texts-connections they receive in English Department courses.
McShane, Becky Jo. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Education>Documentation>Help
#29770
Technical writers make distinctions between the types of documents they create: user guides, reference manuals, tutorials. But do users really understand these document types? How do users look for different kinds of information--and how do we, as technical writers, make it clear to them what types of information are available? This paper presents results of usability evaluations of documentation for electronic design automation software, showing how a writing team tried to improve the categorization and presentation of document types.
Heninger, Barbara L. and Michael J. Miller. STC Proceedings (2004). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design>Genre
#23289
Do Your Manuals Put Children in Danger? A Survey of Juvenile Products Consumers 
What can manufacturers do to improve the readability of manuals that accompany juvenile products?
Manual Labour (2003). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design>Children
#26373
This howto attempts to clear the fog and mystery surrounding the DocBook markup system and the tools that go with it. It is aimed at authors of technical documentation for open-source projects hosted on Linux, but should be useful for people composing other kinds on other Unixes as well.
Raymond, Eric S. tldp.org. Articles>Documentation>XML>DocBook
#31161
Having new DocBook standards in place may do little to push adoption. An important factor in driving user adoption is the availability of software that implements the standard. It would be interesting to see whether big software companies would jump on the bandwagon...Unless the open-source community comes to the rescue!
Talbot, Fabrice. LiveTechDocs (2008). Articles>Documentation>XML>DocBook
#26193
Docbook Frequently Asked Questions
This is a collation of some Frequently Asked questions regarding Docbook. The initial focus will be on the XML version of the DTD, and the XSLT based stylesheets.
dpawson.co.uk (2005). Articles>Documentation>Standards>DocBook
#10571
In two recent consulting projects, we worked with online documentation developers who wanted to understand the problems users encountered and how their documentation helped solve those problems. To find out, we went and observed users in their own work environments. Although the clients and their software differ significantly, we found similar issues.
User Interface Engineering (1998). Articles>Usability>Documentation
#22878
Document Design: A Brief Primer
Today's documentation must be designed with information retrieval as its key objective. When information is organized and mapped into a consistent, logical structure that uses retrievability aids such as labels that facilitate scanning, blocks of information, advance organizers for the information, keywords, meaningful indexes, and a hierarchical organization, readers can quickly locate and use the information that they need.
Flanders, Melanie G. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>Documentation>Document Design>User Centered Design
#20306
A Document Management Case Study: QLD Dept of Housing
How a new spin on document management software helped revolutionise customer service at the Queensland Department of Housing.
Hambly, Natalie. Cherryleaf (2003). Articles>Documentation>Software>Government
#23141
Document to the Question: Understanding What Users Ask and Where They Look for the Answers 
The user's idea of the problem is often very different than the help or program designer's. The online help topics often reflect the designer's viewpoint, not the user's.
STC India (2003). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design>Help
#26262
Document your Database Project to Capture Relevant Info 
Documenting a database during its development is a best practice to ensure that the organizational schema, data objects, and other related information are captured for future reference.
Kelly, William T. Builder.com (2003). Articles>Project Management>Databases>Documentation
#20574
Documentation and Training Productivity Benchmarks 
Investigates how computer-industry companies create end-user documentation and training materials, and how they measure productivity. Describes results of interviews of eleven managers of publications or training departments.
Barr, John P. 'Jack' and Stephanie Rosenbaum. Technical Communication Online (2003). Articles>Documentation>Assessment
#25410
Documentation Confuses More Than it Clarifies
Vendors could make life for the user a lot easier if manual writers were familiar with the product.
Computing Canada (1999). Articles>Documentation
#24703
A Documentation Database for Managing Time and Costs
Keeping track of a technical writing team’s time can be a tedious task, especially when that time has to be charged to various internal departments. Using Lotus Notes™ (Lotus Development Corporation and Iris Associates, Inc.), we developed a relational database to track this information. This database uses a single form for all documentation status inputs. Then it summarizes the data in a variety of view. Separate forms track SEI statistics and simplify department employee time administration.
Lang, Darice and Debra Ricks. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Documentation>Project Management
#27590
With limited staff, a rapidly changing IT environment, and increasing complexity, my own inflexible documentation practices had to be updated to reflect more dynamic environments.
Dickerson, Chad. InfoWorld (2004). Articles>Documentation>Agile>Extreme Documentation
#28178
As technical writers, we work more online than ever before. We are beginning to work with documentation in a new way, so that we can repurpose content and free it from the restrictions imposed by any particular delivery mechanism. We no longer solely create paper-publishable documents. We do not, as yet, have a good word for what we do; we do not have a single word or phrase that summarizes the effort or the deliverables. Nor can we use any single existing lexicon because the concepts are new. This difficulty is a natural consequence of the inter-networked world in which we work, where information is delivered multiple ways for diverse audiences. But let us look at the phrases currently growing in popular usage that refer to this effort.
Albing, Bill, Michelle Corbin Nichols and Ann-Marie Grissino. Carolina Communique (2004). Articles>Documentation>Online
#24651
As technical communicators grapple with the changing processes and tools within which they work, we are seeing a gradual but dramatic evolution of technical writers into content developers.
Albing, Bill. KeyContent.org (2004). Articles>Documentation
#14740
Documentation for a Technical Audience
Liebhaber discusses the benefits of system documentation--documentation written for an audience of technical people who solve support problems or modify components to the software.
Liebhaber, Karen Powers. Intercom (2002). Articles>Documentation
#19889
Documentation for Global Markets: Some Practical Considerations
This panel will discuss the development of documentation for global markets. Many practical tips will be offered for discussion.
Bolton, David, Ralph F. Calistro and Laurel R. Simmons. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Documentation>International
#19827
The ISO 9000 series of Quality Standards redefines how business will be conducted into the next century. The series is designed to measure the effectiveness of the Quality System in place, thereby ensuring both customer and company needs are always satisfied. The foundation of a robust Quality System is its documentation: problems in this area represent the largest single cause of registration failures. Quality System documentation also forms the basis upon which the 3rd party registrar builds the audit plan for your company.
Robinson, Ralph E. STC Proceedings (1999). Articles>Documentation>Standards>ISO 9000
#26941
Documentation for Sarbanes-Oxley
In the financial end of business, more work is being done with documentation, thanks to Sarbanes-Oxley and financial accountability.
KeyContent.org (2006). Articles>Business Communication>Documentation
#29435
Documentation is a Profit Center!
Everyone knows that documentation is a cost center, and that downsizing writers and moving documentation online save money. Unfortunately for 'everyone', it's trivial to demonstrate that documentation is actually a profit center--and we don't even have to wrassle with messy stuff like customer satisfaction to prove it.
Hart, Geoffrey J.S. Geoff-Hart.com (2000). Articles>Documentation>Workplace
