Knowledge Base Design

Subject: Knowledge Base Design
From: gbassham -at- cypress-software -dot- com
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 08:00:39 -0600


Hi. I'm new to this list, but it seems to have a lot of great information.

I am working on launching a knowledge base. I have been trying to find out
some information on knowledge base design, but Google and Amazon have not
proven fruitful at all.

I have found a number of software packages to develop a knowledge base,
but that's not really what I'm looking for. Here, the technical side is
taken care of by our own proprietary applications.

I need answers to questions like these:

1. Is it better to have a lot of index entries or only a few? (I would
like to have a lot, but a number of people here want to limit index
entries pretty strictly).

2. Are users more likely to use the index search or the hierarchical
treeview to find an article?

3. Are there any guidelines for designing the hierarchical treeview?

4. Should the same article show up in different spots on the treeview?
(For example, assuming that I have four or five different applications
that all print documents, should a generic article on printing show up for
all of them?)

5. Is it useful to have a Getting Started section? What about tutorials?

And so on and so forth. (What makes this all even more complicated is that
I'm also supposed to be turning all of our documentation into
single-source at the same time I develop the Knowledge Base. And oh, yeah,
they want it all by Christmas.)

Does anyone know of any resources to help me with this task? Books,
articles, websites? I've been searching a lot the last couple of days, and
I haven't been able to find much at all.

Thanks,

Gayla

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

ROBOHELP X5: Featuring Word 2003 support, Content Management, Multi-Author
support, PDF and XML support and much more!
TRY IT TODAY at http://www.macromedia.com/go/techwrl

WEBWORKS FINALDRAFT: New! Document review system for Word and FrameMaker
authors. Automatic browser-based drafts with unlimited reviewers. Full
online discussions -- no Web server needed! http://www.webworks.com/techwr-l

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



Previous by Author: Does this call for XML?
Next by Author: Re: and then (was: Silly but important to me)
Previous by Thread: RE: Action(s) menu
Next by Thread: RE: Knowledge Base Design


What this post helpful? Share it with friends and colleagues:


Sponsored Ads