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Subject:RE: Future of documentation in Web-based apps From:"Richard Smith" <Richard -dot- Smith -at- windriver -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Thu, 28 Jun 2001 16:30:53 -0700
Sounds like you're being asked to look into the future of documentation that
your boss thinks you shouldn't need? It sounds like your boss has been
hanging around the marketing dept too long. ;-)
Sure some interfaces have no help. But often that is a limitation of the
design and its use cases. Also, they are not at all easy to design, and tend
to be very purpose driven, like ATM machines. Web applications are already
here, as is the documentation for them. As for the ability to avoid help
altogether, that will depend on how you build the interface, and what level
of complexity the application itself will have. I'm not so sure it's a good
idea approaching a project with the idea that the UI is so simple it needs
no help. That's kinda dangerous.
Web based applications are more programmatic than plain old static HTML.
Because of that, some application servers have their own help APIs, so what
you do as a help mechanism may be influenced by your application server.
Look into how you will serve the web-app, then look at what options you have
with that platform. As for the future of web-app documentation, you better
break out the magic 8-ball. What works well today may not be around next
year. Certainly there are some buzzwords like XML. Generally, you have a
back end; a database or repository of documents, and a front end; typically
a browser page, to display them.
Another BIG part of web-app help is providing quality error messages in
response to invalid user actions. Can't tell you how many web-apps I've used
that have bogus error messages which leave the user totally stumped as to
what they need to do to fix it.
Richard Smith
> Subject: Future of documentation in Web-based apps
>
> My boss has asked me to research the future of documentation in web-based
> apps. Our director has mentioned future apps that use
> "easy-to-use browser
> based screens that users will not need guides for."
>
> For those who work in web-based usability, are there such
> screens? Perhaps
> there's a method of interface design we're not aware of?
>
> Any educated feedback would be very helpful.
>
> Best,
>
> Kathryn Scoffield
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