Re: Presentation of detailed images in a User's Guide?

[Sean Hower <hokumhome -at- freehomepage -dot- com>]

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Cummings, Elizabeth asked:
I'm also interested in hearing any advice on how to handle presenting such detailed images in a meaningful but uncluttered manner.
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Well, currently, we have what we call "Visual Help" that presents a graphic of every form, and its accompanying boxes and screens, that the software has (this is for database software). We have links set up so that the user can navigate through the form as they would if they were actually using the form. They can click elements on the form to get a description of what hte element is for. Our users have frequently commented that they use this version of our help over our reference guide (which is, admittedly, quite drive and difficult to find information in), so it seems to be a good way to handle what WE have. You might consider the same.

That said, Beth did bring up a couple of good points. You should find out if you really need to describe every field or not. I'm currently working on something where I do not describe every field, but rather the function of the screens that appear, because we're assuming the user will know what the fields are (yes, we can make this assumption for reasons that I cannot go into on the list). You may have a similiar situation.

If you do have to include every field and every object for every report and every screen, an alphabetical list may be the best way to go. Just from personal experience with our own help, organizing by form (or report in your case) can make it very difficult to find the information you need when you need it. But this goes to access issues, and not providing sufficient points of entry for our users to find what they need. If you have to provide descriptions for everything, I would spend a lot of time on creating a good index, and really pay attention to how you are organizing the information. That's all I can say without really knowing exactly what the product looks like.

If you want, you can contact me off list for more details about what we're currently doing here.


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"And in the morning, I'm makin waffles." ~ Donkey
Sean Hower - tech writer
http://hokum.freehomepage.com

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