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Let's say you are documenting a procedure. A device will ask two, three or
five questions, depending on how you answer some of the questions.
You want to flow-chart each path through the question set. You are trying to
fit this onto WebHelp pages, so you don't want an individual flow-chart to
show all possible combinations and permutations. You just want to chart one
path, meaning that you want to force the answer to each question and ignore
the other answer(s). Then, another page will chart a different path through
the same few questions, and so on.
Would you just use normal question diamonds with a path continuing from the
desired answer on one side and a dead-end bubble on the other side saying
"Not Used" or similar?
What if, for some operations, certain "usual" prompts would not occur, and
you want to give the user some indication that those prompts would occur
down the path they aren't taking just now? I thought of including a box or
two of the path that they won't take, but grayed out and trailing off into a
dotted line.
In other words, certain operations would be common to the point of being
habitual, but some sequences (used rarely) would start off as "normal" and
then branch away. I was thinking that it would provide a certain orienting
comfort to show the path not taken. Or is that just too dumb?
Kevin
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