Online Help? Or Not!  

Calls on technical communicators to suggest a new term for modular documentation accessible via a tri-pane interface.

Carmel, Patricia A. Intercom (2005). Articles>Documentation>Online>Help

Online Reference: The Ultimate in User-Friendly Documentation  

This teaching hospital in Texas has successfully implemented an online reference system that allows access to nearly 14,000 employees in more than 20 cities. A cross-functional project team was formed to address the needfor immediate access to current policies and procedures across the entire enterprise. This team researched, developed, and implemented an effective and successful system that was also easy to learn and use.

Richardson, Verna. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>Documentation>Biomedical>Online

Online, On Time: Developing an Online Documentation System Using Five Easy Tools  

So, you need to distribute your documents on the Internet in addition to the hundreds of other things you already do? As you may have already discovered, coding everything in HTML is not exactly the solution high-volume technical writing departments are looking for. We understand. We’ve been there and, in the process, have developed a system to make it as painless as possible. The following is a brief synopsis of our system. We will cover the details more thoroughly in our demonstration.

Wright, Lori and Sandy Sledge. STC Proceedings (1999). Articles>Documentation>Online

Our .CHM Files Don't Work Anymore. Why?

If you are delivering your help from a network location and you notice that .CHM files don't work anymore, don't be surprised. Recent Microsoft updates include tighter security for .CHM files. After installing the updates you can no longer run .CHM files from a network location. However, you can still run a .CHM file on your local machine.

HelpScribe (2008). Articles>Documentation>Online>Help

An Overview of JavaHelp 1.0 and Doc-To-Help 2000  

JavaHelp is a new online Help platform created by Sun. Sun released JavaHelp 1.0 in April, but it's been publicly available through several beta releases for a while. (The just-released Doc-To-Help 2000 supports this new version of JavaHelp.)

Bannister, Bob. ComponentOne (1999). Articles>Documentation>Online>Help

Paper to CD-ROM: A Case Study in Converting from Paper to Online Documentation  

Cisco Systems, Inc., releases a CD-ROM volume each month that contains documentation for all versions of products currently in use. Cisco spent 8 months preparing for the release of the first CD Regular monthly releases require adherence to a strict schedule of incorporating errata and enhancements into online manuals, placing new and revised books into a CD database, resolving problems that occur during the build, and testing that all books are in their proper locations. This process has affected how managers schedule documents so that they are included on the CD that is current when a product ships. It has also changed the roles of the writers and editors, who must now manipulate files in the CD database and incorporate errata and enhancements into both paper and online documents.

Cote, Joanna C., Elizabeth R. Fitch, and Aviva Garrett. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Documentation>Online

Planning an Online Help Project

This paper outlines some general principles you need to consider when planning an online help project and creating WinHelp files.

Hollis Weber, Jean. Technical Editors Eyrie (1999). Articles>Documentation>Online>Help

Planning and Creating a Windows Online Help System  

The basic requirements for creating accurate and useful technical documentation are good writing skills, an understanding of the audience, knowledge of the tools used for producing documentation, ability to use the product, and ability to successfully interview subject matter experts. While the same skills are essential for creating an online help system, writers also need to understand how help projects are set up, how to modify their writing to produce modular help topics, how to test the program-to-help links between the product and the help topics, and how to align help file development with engineering build dates. In addition, writers expand their hypertext awareness to include new terms such us jumps and pop-ups.

Mandavilli, Lavanya K. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Documentation>Online>Help

Posting User Documentation on the Web  

Our company posts user documents on its Internet web site as PDF files. Announcements are sent to customers and company staff to inform them of the latest document updates. Customers log on a password- protected documentation page, where they can view the documents in a Reader or save them to their PC hard drives. There are several advantages to distributing documents in PDF on the Internet for both customers and our company.

Utz, Dana. STC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Documentation>Online>Adobe Acrobat

Problems in Navigating Online Help: Clues from User Search Patterns

The largest problem our participants had in using the help system wasn't in processing the procedural information in the help, but rather finding the correct help topic, a topic generally unaddressed in the literature on how to write a help system. Specifically, participants had difficulty in searching for topics because their terminology differed from the terminology used by the help system, and they became lost in the unclear structure of the system.

Krull, Robert and Angela Eaton. WritersUA (2005). Articles>Documentation>Help>Online

Producing a CD-ROM Manual: A Case Study  

We are producing roughly 150 titles of telecommunications manuals annually for NTT and member corporations of the NIT Group. Accompanying the progress of multi-media applications in recent years, there has been a growing trend towards electronic versions of manuals in terms of the manner of thinking and usage of manuals themselves among producers and users as well. The existence of CDROM manuals in particular is attracting considerable attention. Here, we provide an introduction to some important points in terms of production using examples regarding the production of CD-ROM manuals at our company.

Nakata, Satoshi, Junji Taka and Shigehisa Iwai. STC Proceedings (1996). Articles>Documentation>Online

Producing Online Documentation  

The field of technical documentation is rapidly evolving from the production of printed manuals to online documentation. In the future, technical writers will become interface designers, as teams of writers and engineers produce user interfaces that require less documentation. The documentation, in fact, will become part of the software product. As we move in this direction, writers are attempting to produce online documentation that blends seamlessly with the software.

Poole, Dorothy L. and Susanne Vieira. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Documentation>Online

Providing Documentation on the Internet with the Choices, Challenges, and Constraints: World Wide Web-Based Information Delivery  

World Wide Web can often help both technical communicators and their audiences; however, this new vehicle for delivering information is not a panacea for all situations. This panel presents several different perspectives on providing documentation through the World Wide Web.

Ray, Eric J. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Documentation>Online

Providing Documentation Over the World Wide Web—Pros and Cons  

The World Wide Web is a global network that supports a hypertext protocol and is built on top of the Internet. Vendors can now supply a single source of hyperlinked documentation for their products for customer use. The advantages would be document control, faster revision, and automatic feedback. The problems are network reliability, hardware limitations, and lack of support for the unnetworked user.

Alper, Samantha. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Documentation>Online

Providing On-line Documentation to the Non-Networked Enterprise  

We have all heard the terms, ‘telecommuting,’ ‘groupware,’ and intra- or internet at one time or another. However, the best designed information retrieval system is useless if you cannot get on-line to use it. Most companies are taking advantage of technology, and publishing their policies and procedures on their own intranet or Local Area Network. Unfortunately, some organizations with field offices, off-site agents or consultants, even executives on travel are not always ‘plugged-in’ to this information. There is a way to make dynamic information available to enterprises without internet accessibility or LAN/WAN connections. What follows is one solution to the quest for getting ‘plugged in’ and taking advantage of dynamic data exchange.

Anderson, Michelle E. STC Proceedings (1998). Articles>Documentation>Online>Help

Put Your Documentation Online--From Conception to Delivery  

After attending this demonstration, you should understand: what constitutes online information; why they should consider producing documentation for online viewing and searching; how to plan for online documentation; how to prepare the text and graphic files; what is required to convert text and graphic files; into online documentation; what is required for the end user to view, search, and print the online documentation; the different ways to deliver online documentation.

Barnes Jedlicka, Linda, Margaret Eissler Jones and Herbert E. Vogt. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Documentation>Online

Put Your Documentation Online: How to Deliver It to Your Users  

After attending this demonstration, you should understand: what constitutes online documentation; why you should consider producing information for online viewing and searching; how to select a tool for converting text and graphics files into online documentation; how to set up an online documentation database for delivering your online libraries; what is required for the end user to view, search, and print the online documentation; the different ways to deliver online documentation; (such as diskette, on the same media as the product, CD-ROM, electronically, and on the Internet).

Vogt, Herbert E., Linda Barnes Jedlicka and Margaret Eissler Jones. STC Proceedings (1996). Articles>Documentation>Online

Quality Online Help Development  

Basic steps to developing successful online help include content planning based on available resources and user needs, use of a style guide, effective design and access, prototype development, usability studies, and being open to changes. Defining “quality” as “customer satisfaction” we can place the online help development process into the context of a continuous quality process model that focuses on meeting customer needs. This quality process includes identifying output, identifying customer and customer requirements, converting requirements into processes, measuring the output, and evaluating results.

Evans, Jeanette P. STC Proceedings (1999). Articles>Documentation>Online>Help

A Real-Time Online Documentation Delivery and Feedback System for a World Wide Audience – Via the Net  

This paper describes an online documentation delivery and feedback solution developed to meet the needs of a fast-paced project in which designers, developers, marketing specialists, technical writers, and beta-test customer sites were located all over the world. During the development of the IBM Health Data Network, we needed a way to provide drafts of the product documentation to all of the developers, reviewers, and users on a real-time basis. We also needed a way to get input and updates from the developers, and feedback from the people in the field who were working with beta versions of the new system. This paper describes how we set up a Web-based solution to meet these needs.

Vogt, Herbert E. STC Proceedings (1998). Articles>Documentation>Online>Help

Reconstructing the Dialogs: Effective Methods for Structuring a Context-Sensitive Help System  

When assigned to create a context-sensitive hypertext Help system, writers and editors often find themselves asking, 'Where do I start? What is context-sensitivity and how in-depth should it be? How do I organize Help topics for the interface?' We will demonstrate how to structure a Help system based on context-sensitivity, the interface, and useful access tools. We will show how WordPerfect Domestic Documentation Services uses interface information to create a topics database and a corresponding text file.

Calhoun, Deirdre and Wendy Fritzke. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Documentation>Online>Help

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

The Right Help in the Right Place  

Originally submitted to Builder.com, this article is an overview of how to add effective help to Web-based applications. It was written for developers and others who are not technical communication professionals. Builder.com changed direction and decided not to publish the piece.

Deaton, Mary M. Builder.com (2003). Articles>Documentation>Help>Online

RTFM Part II, Looking Beyond the Printed Page

Last month I went through some fairly atrocious documentation. The letters I received from frustrated geeks really drove home the point that bad docs can make what should be a simple, routine, and--dare I say--fun experience, dreadful.

Krasne, Alexandra. PC World (2004). Articles>Documentation>Online>Help

Seven (Plus or Minus Two) Things to Remember About Producing Online Documentation  

Producing online documentation requires a new view of a technical communicator's roles, skills, and responsibilities.

Titta, Catherine M. and John E. Johnson. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Documentation>Online>Usability

Seven Steps to Successful Online Help  

How do you create an effective online help system and efficiently manage the project? This paper will cover some basics of practical online help design and project management. The presentation includes examples from a project we worked on.

Evans, Jeanette P. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Documentation>Online>Help