Extreme documentation is an agile methodology for developing documentation in small to medium-sized teams in the face of vague or rapidly changing requirements.
#18834
Developing an Information Strategy 
The role of the technical communicator has been changing dramatically over the past few years. Gone are the days when hefty user manuals are considered desirable. Technical communicators must now think of ways of building intuitiveness into products to obviate the need for reams and reams of hard copy documentation. This understanding forms the basis for developing an information strategy.
Florsheim, Stewart J. STC Proceedings (1997). Design>Documentation>Information Design>Content Strategy
#30428
Developing Documentation for ISO 9000 Certification: Case Studies from the United States and Europe
This panel discussion clarifies the implications of ISO 9000 certification for writers and editors and presents European and U.S. approaches to developing documentation for certification.
Carom, Barbara L., Mary Louise O'Connell and Wesley Chase. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Documentation>Case Studies>ISO 9000
#13480
Developing Documentation Process
This paper defines a good manual to have a good balance in quality, cost (close to estimation, not over), and delivery (on time schedule). Analyzing our past problems, we have been developing documentation process to control these three factors through the following: working as a team, standardizing an estimation method, and standardizing an evaluation system.
Suzuki, Akihiko. STC Proceedings (1993). Presentations>Documentation>Workflow
#14677
Developing Help for the Web: Designs, Trends, Strategies
Zubak reviews the current state of Web-based help technology. Her article prepares technical communicators for upcoming challenges in this increasingly important field.
Zubak, Cheryl Lockett. Intercom (2001). Design>Documentation>Help
#20304
Developing HTML Documents and Help System
This document explains necessary tips for providing product information in digital form, giving specific examples of choosing the suitable media, classifying information, appropriate linking, file organization, etc. through our experience (in Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd.) during the development of the software product called Web PrintVision.
Ito, Sachi. STC Proceedings (1998). Articles>Documentation>Online>Help
#23155
Developing ISO 9000 Procedures
Documentation is the foundation upon which an ISO-compliant quality system is built. Creating this documentation isn’t, however, as easy as it seems on the surface. Understanding the concept of the Standard enables writers to understand the content requirements. The structure this documentation follows will also impact the success of your registration audit. Once the documentation has been created, the control of it becomes of paramount importance. ISO requires that you control not only the documents and data you create, but also those that you receive from outside sources. Document and data control issues are one of the most common causes of registration failure!
Robinson, Ralph E. STC Proceedings (1996). Articles>Documentation>Policies and Procedures
#31799
Developing Knowledge Base Articles
A short article that offers some tips on writing articles for a knowledge base, whether internal or client facing.
DMN Communications (2008). Articles>Documentation>Writing>Technical Writing
#30430
Developing Online Help for OS/2 Applications
One of the biggest problems facing Help developers is that of providing users with adequate methods of navigation through what can be huge amounts of information. After more than a two or three jumps, users can find themselves in topics that might be useful, but with no clear indication of how they got there or how to return to where they started. OS/2 gives the Help developer extraordinarily flexible tools for creating online documentation that can prevent this situation and provide users with a clearer path through online information than many other platforms can provide. However, this enhanced usability is not without its cost.
Radecki, Steven Lewis. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Documentation>Online>Help
#30136
Developing Online Help in Lotus Notes
If you are a technical writer or manage technical writers and have been asked to document Lotus Notes applications, this workshop will give you a jump start. You can use the features available in Notes to create an effective help system as a Notes database. This help database can either be a view in an existing Notes application or a stand-alone database linked to the application. In this workshop, you will learn the basics of creating help systems in Lotus Notes.
Gross, Jacqui, Faye Smith and Steve Charles. STC Proceedings (1998). Articles>Documentation>Help>Online
#25058
The process of troubleshooting problems in complex systems involves systematically obtaining and synthesizing information from many sources, Creating troubleshooting support documents involves an analogous planning and development process. Three activities are essential to the creation of successful troubleshooting materials: cultivating strategic partners, designing an effective document, and implementing efficient information gathering processes. The unique nature of troubleshooting information requires approaches to these activities that can be adapted to different situations. This paper uses an informal case study format to illustrate how several techniques developed at Cisco Systems, Inc. can be used to create troubleshooting material for any complex system.
Lew, H. Kim. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Documentation
#20305
Developing WebHelp: What 'How to' Design Doesn't Always Tell Us
Development of the Intranet application STAR.IDN for requesting and receiving medically related supplies illustrates a broad spectrum of technological and user issues. As such it serves as a case study of design and user-related decisions between an application designer and a Help author. Central to the study is the argument that design must be based on an empirically 'informed' rather than 'assumed' user model. The project also challenges Web literature that does not address user considerations in its promotion of design methods.
Eiler, Mary Ann and Kathleen Bright. STC Proceedings (1998). Articles>Documentation>Online>Help
#23583
Development of Japanese-Language CD-ROM Manuals Using SGML
Fujitsu Limited publishes as many as 10,000 manuals a year. Efficient, standardized manual production is, therefore, indispensable. Our department has created a manual on CD - ROM as a pilot project of electronic publishing using the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML). The use of CD - ROM provides the manual with a convenient reformation search feature and high portability that can not be achieved with conventional paper manuals. This paper discusses our methodologies, problems involved in Japanese language SGML manual production, and how we solved them.
Nakamura, Yuko. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Documentation>Localization>Japan
#23487
Development, Use and Profitability of Translation Memory Systems
Product life spans and documentation production times are becoming increasingly short and the expenditures for documentation are rising simultaneously with increasing product complexity. Hence, translation projects are becoming more costly as the parallel increasing documentation complexity.
Knauf, Ansgar. TC-FORUM (1999). Articles>Documentation>Localization>Machine Translation
#14777
Differentiating Online Help from Printed Documentation
Hemmi discusses the differences between online help and printed documentation and suggests how technical communicators can make the most of both media.
Hemmi, Jane A. Intercom (2002). Design>Documentation
#21475
Distributing Cross-Platform, Cross-Browser HTML Help Using the Microsoft Java Applet
In a previous article we discussed what browser-based HTML Help is, and how you can use the HTML Help ActiveX control to create and distribute web-based HTML Help to Microsoft Internet Explorer Users. In this article we'll explain how to use the Microsoft Java Applet to create and distribute Help systems that can be viewed by an Java-enabled browser.
ComponentOne (1999). Articles>Documentation>Online>Help
#21480
Distributing Web-based HTML Help
In this article we discuss what browser-based HTML Help is, the sitemap file that's behind the HTML Help table of contents, how the HTML Help ActiveX control HHCTRL.OCX interprets and displays this sitemap file, and how you can automatically distribute HHCTRL.OCX.
ComponentOne (1998). Articles>Documentation>Online>Help
#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
#31754
A searchable knowledge base of specifications for DITA users.
#31755
This area provides access to my DITA specialization tutorial and other DITA specialization-related information and materials.
#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
#32037
DITA, DocBook and the Art of the Document
Both the DITA and the DocBook specification are quite alive and well in organizations, and each is evolving into its own distinct application niches, with DITA looking to be turning into the default standard for large scale enterprises, while DocBook works more effectively at the small to intermediate level. What’s perhaps more interesting is the Microsoft Word, even with support for XML as provided by OOXML, is not making as much of an inroad in the structured document market, in great part because it is fairly difficult to constrain people’s use of the word-processing program to a limited, finite subset of potential styles.
Cagle, Kurt. XML.com (2008). Academic>Documentation>DocBook>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
