Re: Indices and not-indices

["Julie Stickler" <jstickler -at- gmail -dot- com>]

I'll vote for ugly index over no index as well.

I'm a big fan of indexing.  And not just because I use indexes
extensively and would miss them if I didn't put them into my own docs.
 Even if my users never opened my index, I've found that the process
of building an index is a good final check for my documentation.
Indexing  can help me identify missing topics, or even just
information that I included in one topic, but left out of another.
And I'm just anal retentive enough to enjoy building indexes.  *grins*
 The fact that a good index is helpful to the user is almost an added
benefit.

Indexing doesn't need to take a lot of time.  When I wrote my first
manual (which weighed in at about 400 pages) I spent two days building
and tweaking the index.  And it doesn't have to be perfect right away.
 I plan two or three days for indexing a project, be it a manual or a
help system.   I usually do my indexing during that couple of days
when the docs are out for review and I'm waiting for edits and
comments to come back.  After a couple of releases, I usually get to
the point where I had a damn fine index.  When people would ask me if
X is in a particular doc, I usually can just check my index to see if
the information is there or not.

As far as building an index, it's all about keywords and anticipating
what your users would be looking up. I usually try to create two
keywords for each heading or topic. I create index entries for each of
the UI elements (applications, tabs, buttons, actions, etc.).  I
create an index entry for each task that can be performed with the
software (widgets: buying, creating, selling, etc).

Then the fun part comes in.  What alternate terms or keywords (words
that don't appear in the documentation) might they be searching under.
 This is where an index can provide real value by pointing the user to
a topic that they can't find using search.

And I've found Larry Bonura's The Art of Indexing to be a really
excellent book on the subject.
(http://www.amazon.com/Art-Indexing-Larry-S-Bonura/dp/0471014494)

Julie Stickler
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