The New DUI (Documentation User Interface): Developing an Online Documentation Interface Using Microsoft Visual Basic, Word, and Access  

To address the increasing need for online delivery of customizable documentation, a writer for an information warehouse product presented, developed, and delivered an online documentation user interface. Developed using the standard PC development tools for the application, including Visual Basic and Access, this system lets users view and customize Word documents, online help files, and Access database tables.

Swain, Julie. STC Proceedings (1995). Presentations>Documentation>Single Sourcing

Online Authoring Tools: Descriptions and Demonstrations  

It’s sometimes difficult to determine which tool is right for a particular job. This demonstration shows the types of online documentation projects that are best suited to each of three online authoring tools: Dot-To-Help by WexTech Systems, ToolBook by Asymetrix, and RoboHelp by Blue Sky Software. Technical writers who have used these products to create online help projects will discuss feature comparisons, system requirements for both author and user of the online documentation, and limitations of the tools. By seeing demonstrations of the authoring tools and the projects created with these tools, attendees should have a better understanding of what each tool can help them accomplish.

Roddy, Laurie C. and Lee S. Turner. STC Proceedings (1995). Presentations>Documentation>Software>Adobe RoboHelp

An Overview of HTML-based Help  

HTML...HTML Help...HTML-based help...WebHelp... JavaHelp...Oracle Help...what does it all mean? There are so many online help options, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and confused. This paper discusses the difference between HTML Help, WebHelp, JavaHelp, and Oracle Help. Specifically, it explains each help technology’s features and limitations, the user requirements, and best use.

DeLoach, Scott. STC Proceedings (2001). Presentations>Documentation>Help

PowerPoint Tutorial: Microsoft PowerPoint 2003

This PowerPoint tutorial is just what you need to get up to speed using PowerPoint to create engaging and effective presentations. Whether you're creating a presentation for an informal gathering, a school or classroom assignment, or one for your business partners or associates, PowerPoint is a powerful tool that will help get the job done. Each PowerPoint tutorial features text and screen shots, and some include narrated multimedia tutorials in Flash.

Guides and Tutorials (2006). Articles>Documentation>Presentations>Microsoft PowerPoint

Practice and Feedback in Technical Tutorials  

To be effective, technical tutorials need to offer learners the opportunity to put information into action and to assess their performance through well designed practice sessions. Research findings on practice modules suggest the appropriate levels of difficulty, structure of practice sessions, and optimal forms of feedback.

Krull, Robert. STC Proceedings (2001). Presentations>Documentation>Documentation

Procedures Writing Training in a Corporate Environment  

In a corporate procedures writing program staff members of a financial company wrote procedures documenting their everyday work. Because these staff members were not trained in technical writing, a twostage training process was developed. The writing would be done by the in-house staff; in this case, financial analysts and accountants, referred to as SME writers. These staff members were required to document their everyday functions but had no professional training in writing; training, therefore, was a prerequisite to ensuring a successful writing program.

Perelli, Elizabeth T. STC Proceedings (1993). Presentations>Documentation>Collaboration

Producing Site-Specific Training Materials: How Technical Communicators Can Increase Job Security  

According to the SCANS report, '80 percent of the workers on whom American employers will depend as we enter the 21st century are already on the job.' Onsite employee training and retraining must become a major focus for American companies. Technical communicators can develop site-specific training materials for their employers, but they will need to 'speak another language' in order to communicate the potential savings and benefits to management. Technical communicators who produce site-specific training materials can increase their job security by increasing their employer's ability to compete.

Wietelman, Sherry S. STC Proceedings (1994). Presentations>Documentation>Writing

Project Management and the Technical Communicator

Describes how project management can help technical communication professionals better plan and manage their technical documentation projects.

McCormick, Greg. SlideShare (2007). Presentations>Project Management>Documentation>Collaboration

Quality Management And Quality Information Products: Developing An Effective Methodology For Quality-Driven User Documentation  

Developing a methodology for creating user documentation involves the following phases: analyze need, plan, define requirements, design, construct, test, implement, and maintain. In addition to moving through these phases while creating the methodology, you must include each of these standard phases as a major section in the methodology. This paper describes how the Documentation and Training Center of Excellence used the standard project methodology phases to create and implement a methodology which tied closely to the phases.

Smittle, Linda S. and Robert C. Vestal. STC Proceedings (1994). Presentations>Documentation>Methods

A “Real World” Look at Windows Help Authoring Tools  

Aha, you say, you’ve finally gotten permission to go online. And your boss has even allocated enough precious-budget dollars to buy the right hardware and software to do the job. How hard can if be to find a good authoring tool, you think. And then you start to receive the product literature from n developers of Windows help authoring tools . . .

Zubak, Cheryl Lockett. STC Proceedings (1995). Presentations>Documentation>Help>Online

Searching for the Best Mix of Paper and Online Documentation: Two Case Studies  

As online help has evolved from simple field descriptions to a fully capable hypertext medium designers of software documentation have been faced with determining the best mix of paper and online. Which information goes in which medium? How much, if any, should be repeated in both? This paper describes two case studies in which hcumentation teams addressed these issues while redesigning their information sets. By the end of both projects, the documentation was streamlined redundancy between pn”ntand online was reduce4 and the majority of the information was presented online.

Massa, Jack A. STC Proceedings (1997). Presentations>Documentation>Online

The Sequential Order of Instructions: Impact on Text Quality  

In written instructions, the sequential order of procedural steps is crucial for effective and efficient performance. In this paper we demonstrate several “rules” for optimizing instructions in this respect: First things first: put instructions in an order that prevents users from neglecting important steps. Minimize cognitive load: put instructions in an order that allows readers to forget what they read. Save time and effort: put instructions in an order that “on average” requires as little time as possible of the readers.

Steehouder, Michael F. and Carel J.M. Jansen. STC Proceedings (1996). Presentations>Documentation>Writing

Software Reuse, Processes—Essentials for the Trainer’s Toolbox and Single-Source, Multimode Document Delivery  

Traditionally, custom document production begins with an empty “New” electronic document and with the writer confined to the paper delivery mode. Networked software reuse facilities can allow writers to avoid this requirement of continually starting from scratch. Hence, net worked software reuse may provide a framework for efficiently creating custom documents in either academic or industrial settings for single-source, multimode delivery (Reece, 1993- 1994). More importantly, software reuse facilities may also provide common ground for technical training within a variety of computing environments. This paper defines software reuse, recommends a process for the development of documents in a software reuse facility, and provides information on quality characteristics for evaluating such software.

Reece, Gloria A. and H.J. Scheiber. STC Proceedings (1995). Presentations>Documentation>Help

Starting and Maintaining A Documentation Department: Concepts, Principles and Techniques  

Starting and Maintaining a Documentation Department – Concepts, Principles and Techniques” includes information about assessing business needs, establishing credibility, building the department, understanding the product life cycle and development practices, and successfully maintaining a documentation department. It includes innovative, creative, and original management concepts, tasks, principles, techniques for newly promoted managers, managers new to a company, and for seasoned managers to ensure success or continued success managing documentation departments.

Hartman, Peter J. STC Proceedings (2000). Presentations>Management>Documentation

Structuring Help for Re-Use  

Many teams are still laboring to transform poorly organized manuals into online help. But the biggest cllallege you face going from paper to online is not interface, but structure The better your structure, the easier your users will navigate.

Price, Jonathan R. STC Proceedings (1995). Presentations>Documentation>Information Design

A Systematic Approach to Creating and Maintaining Software Documentation  

Problems with the current paradigm. - Difficult to write and hard to use. - Inconsistent between project revisions. - No assurance that effort will pay off for end users. - Not designed to provide high quality responses to queries.

Powell, Allison L., James C. French, John C. Knight. University of Virginia (1996). Presentations>Documentation>Software

Technical Communications and Customer Support: Partnering to Publish What Customers Want to Know  

Most customers do not provide direct feedback on product documentation. Instead, when documentation fails to provide the information that a customer needs to use a tool effectively, he or she calls Customer Support for advice. To find out what information was missing or incorrect in our product documentation, I analyzed the Cadence Customer Support call logs that pertained to my products to find out what questions customers ask most about each product. I then partnered with teams of applications engineers (AEs) to improve our documentation by answering common questions, both on the Web in FAQ documents and in product manuals.

Guglielmetti, Krista. STC Proceedings (2000). Presentations>Documentation>Assessment>FAQ

There's More Than One Way To Wire That: When Assembly Workers Are Technically Writers    

While technical writing is becoming a more obvious part of undergraduate education, it is not uncommon for an engineer to face the task of writing documentation without much training in the craft of communication. Other members of production teams may have received even less training, and yet have an equal or greater need to have a say in how documentation is produced and what it contains. In this paper, we will examine a situation in which an assembly worker, or system integrator, demanded the opportunity to document the appropriate ways to assemble complex Test and Measurement systems (for evaluating the electronic components of products such as PC’s, cars, and cellular phones), and the effects her change in roles has had on the production processes for both systems and their documentation.

Hall, Susan P. and Lili Fox Vélez. ACM SIGDOC (1999). Presentations>Documentation>Workplace

Tips and Tricks for Including AVI (Video) Demos in Your Online Tutorial  

This presentation focuses on creating video demonstrations of software for online tutorials, using AVI files, and Inserting these files into Windows Help or HTML.

Rosenberg, Nad. STC Orange County (1998). Presentations>Documentation>Multimedia>Video

Top Ten Blunders  

Common goofs, mistakes, bloopers, mal mots, slip ups, lapses, oversights, gaffes, and 'foe paws' in online documentation and Help.

Horton, William K. III. STC Orange County (1998). Presentations>Documentation>Help

UNIX Man Pages  

Experienced programmers find the man pages very useful but a naive user often finds them overwhelming.

Gururaj, B.S. STC India (2003). Presentations>Documentation>Technical Writing>UNIX

Using a Formal Documentation Development Process  

The need for a more comprehensive documentation development process at Computerized Medical Systems, Inc. (CMS) was identified in an annual year-end review meeting of the CMS User Documentation section. The goal was set to develop and implement such a process. A key component would be a set of comprehensive Content Specification Guidelines. Initial research consisted of reviewing existing literature and compiling a list of information considered essential to effectively plan a documentation project at CMS, based on discussion with software developers and technical communicators as well as experience gained from previous projects. The new process has been in place for about two years and has provided numerous benefits to the company, though some challenges remain. Process (4) that concentrated on the document specification component of the CMS process.

Watson, Frank. STC Proceedings (2000). Presentations>Documentation

Using Databases to Manage Online Documentation  

Our methodology for knowledge base authoring guides you through step-by-step examples of how to create and maintain knowledge bases in a database. The methodology allows your team to develop simple solutions for information requests as well as sophisticated diagnostic trees for troubleshooting. With the information stored in a database, you are able to easily access the information and use it for a variety of projects.

Attubato, Karen M. STC Proceedings (1999). Presentations>Documentation>Management

Using UNIX Tools To Write Automated Documentation Checks  

Writers working on the UNIX® operating system can use basic utilities, along with shell programming, to write scripts that check documentation for completeness and adherence to house style.

Skyer, Susannah. STC Proceedings (1994). Presentations>Documentation>Software>UNIX

Using Usability “Use Cases” in Documentation Planning  

This workshop presents an introduction to use cases - a planning tool which can be used for capturing a future documentation system's functional requirements as well as the overall information requirements of end users. You learn what a use case is and what recommended guidelines there are for creating use cases. You also learn how use cases are applied in the documentation development process as a whole.

Nurminen, Mary and Leena M. Rasinaho. STC Proceedings (1997). Presentations>Documentation>User Centered Design