Re: New Way to do TOC

["Pro TechWriter" <pro -dot- techwriter -at- gmail -dot- com>]

Hi Barbara:

I guess it depends on how the users will want to use the material. Will they
be looking up a reference? Or solving a problem, or getting education about
a topic? Is the material oriented to different roles within an organization?
Specific to areas or disciplines? Or task specific?

Usually I start there: What does the user need to do? For my last position,
the policies and procedures were accessed under different conditions, by
different roles, and for different reasons. Some topics changed infrequently
(state regulations), and others had up-to-the-minute changes (federal
disaster area declarations).  Some topics were organizational and not
germain to everyone.

To give an example, there were "entry paths" in the TOC that were related to
each state (Arizona, California, etc.), and then another path for "Disaster
declarations." These both made use of the same content, but the user didn't
need to know that. There was only one copy of each topic, but it was
referenced in two places (or more, depending).

The TOC also had entry paths by role and department, because a loan officer
and an underwriter don't always need the same information, because their
jobs are different. Where a topic intersected, or was needed in both places,
it was linked to, and displayed in, both places.

It's nice to look at an information access schema that someone else uses as
a starting point, but the most important thing to know is how *your* users
will want to access the data. Its' good that you are asking the question.

The top-down, general-to-specific approach, IMHO, is great for reference
material like dictionaries, or leisurely learning a task that is broken down
from a general overview to steps, but this may not work for other
applications. It would drive me nuts if I need to know (right now) what the
steps are to enter and report on some thing or another. I would want the
steps, period, so I could get on with my day.

I hope this helps :-)
On Feb 13, 2008 1:06 PM, Barbara Vega <BarbaraV -at- libertyims -dot- com> wrote:

>  Hello All
>
> We are looking at a new way to do our TOC
>
> We use Flare BTW. (That has little/nothing to do with post).
>
> At any rate, my boss is a fan of the way MSDN does theirs. On MSDNs, you
> start at a high level for the first topic, which has a "+" sign to the
> left, You can click on the "+" signs and drill down to successively
> lower topics to get to the "ground floor: topic. Depending on the topic
> being discussed, there are varying ways of presenting the material; you
> may have links of topics, you may have tables, or charts, or white
> papers, etc.
>
> It is, as you may expect, quite dense.
>
> My feeling is it is too dense, and a bit overkill for our software, even
> though our software is very complex  (knowledge base information
> management software)
>
> Anyway - you can check out msdn's software at the library section of
> their site at  http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/default.aspxthe
> - the left hand side of the page
>
> Can you point me to other types of - perhaps similar tocs but not quite
> so dense that I can take a look at? I know Microsoft was doing something
> with Vista then bagged it and then - I can't remember - and I am out of
> the loop -
>
> Thanks
>
>
> Barbara Vega
> Documentation Department
> Liberty IMS
> Costa Mesa, CA
>
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