RE: Task-based vs. descriptive online help

[Steve Shepard <STEVES -at- YARDI -dot- com>]

Christine writes:

>I'm revising a help system (specifically, Webhelp) that is mostly what I
>think of as "guided tour" online help: big screen captures from the
>application that you click on if you want to know what a particular
>interface element does. Click on the Name field, and you get a little popup
>blurb explaining that the user's name goes there, etc.  I'm told the help
>system was built from a spec.

>My own inclination ("overwhelming urge" might be more accurate) is to
>revise the help radically and focus it on user tasks. If I do this, I see
>two options for the "click to see what this button here does" sort of
>material:
>     (1) Remove it entirely.
>     (2) Put it in topics separate from the task-based topics, and link to
>it.


In our old WinHelp (we now use Frame/WWP to produce MS HTML Help) we made
extensive use of context sensitive help and it was primarily referenced
base. Hit F1 and it would jump to a definition of the field your in. Mixed
with that was some task based info. It was a real hodge podge and a
nightmare to maintain all the Context Help IDs both in the program code and
in the Help project.

What we do now is take the User Guide (which is task based) and add
reference info with the conditional tag of HelpOnly. We no longer assign
Context Help IDs at the field level, but the form level. When the user hits
F1, they are taken to an short overview of the form with a list of jumps to
related tasks and additional jump to field definitions. We felt that the
primary need of the users was to complete a task, the secondary needs was
more indepth info on fields and the like.

It looks something like this:

PAYABLE INVOICE
Payable>Invoice 

Invoices track payables, financial transactions that either document 
payments already made or that require future payments. Examples of 
payables include payments to tenants and owners, commission payments 
to your business, and monthly service bills. The program gives you 
several ways to record and generate payables, then the program 
automatically updates the tenant, vendor, and general ledgers. If 
desired, you can print checks directly from an invoice to pay it 
immediately. 

You can record payables in the following ways: 

*You can record payables individually for situations such as one-time 
charges from vendors, vendor credit memos, and bank adjustments.

*You can record payables in batches that can be reviewed before 
posting for payment.

*You can record recurring payables to generate periodic invoices 
for fixed amounts such as monthly bills or mortgage payments.

RELATED TASKS 
Recording a Single Invoice 
Producing a Check Directly from an Invoice 
Recording Credit Memos 
Recording Adjustments 

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION 
Payable Invoice Field Definitions 

_________________________________ 
Steven Shepard 
Manager, Documentation Group 
Yardi Systems, Inc. 
819 Reddick Avenue 
Santa Barbara, CA 93103 
805/966-3822 
steves -at- yardi -dot- com 
www.yardi.com 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Develop HTML-Based Help with Macromedia Dreamweaver 4 ($100 STC Discount)
**New Dates!!** San Francisco (Apr 16-17), San Jose (Mar 29-30)
http://www.weisner.com/training/dreamweaver_help.htm or 800-646-9989.

IPCC 01, the IEEE International Professional Communication Conference,
October 24-27, 2001 at historic La Fonda in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA.
CALL FOR PAPERS OPEN UNTIL MARCH 15.  http://ieeepcs.org/2001/

---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot-  Visit 
http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.