TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
RE: Mark Baker tackles large and complex subjects in his latest post for Every Page is Page One
Subject:RE: Mark Baker tackles large and complex subjects in his latest post for Every Page is Page One From:"McLauchlan, Kevin" <Kevin -dot- McLauchlan -at- safenet-inc -dot- com> To:Craig Cardimon <craig -dot- cardimon -at- gmail -dot- com>, techwrl <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Sun, 16 Mar 2014 16:03:15 -0400
I read the article, just now, and like many articles by Mark Baker, I nodded in agreement, all the way through.
Then I saw some links to further recent posts.
I started reading "Getting Past the Linear/Hypertext Hybrid", and found myself shaking my head in disagreement in the very first paragraph.
He says: "Perhaps this is a necessary stage in our evolution from static linear paper manuals to dynamic hypertext information sets, but if so we have lingered in it far too long...".
Back when my employer first made noises about developing a GUI for our to-that-point command-line-only tools and interfaces, I decided to get out ahead by switching over from my FrameMaker-generated PDF books (Installation and Configuration Guides, Administration Manuals, Reference docs, and SDK Guides), to RoboHelp-generated WebHelp that contained all the same info, but in individual topics. There was still a Table of Contents, Index, Glossary, but you could enter anywhere and there were many hyperlinks, in place of the previous few within-a-document-only cross-references.
It wasn't long before customers were asking for PDFs.
After some years, I became no longer a techpubs department-of-one, and the new guy wanted to use our then-current tool, Flare to create PDF, book-organized doc sets, with html WebHelp as an afterthought. I went along with it because he was willing to do all the work of creating the templates for our then-new corporate look-and-feel, and it promised to produce a better PDF output than the afterthought that I'd been doing when WebHelp was primary. It didn't hurt that, all those years later, the employer still hadn't actually gotten around to creating that GUI, though they have, since.
Anyway, my point is that even at this late date, and with a product that is mostly usable via GUI, our customers still demand book-format docs.
They like, and use, the WebHelp, but they also like and use the book versions of same, especially when they want to separate out (usually print out) a bunch of sequential pages to take with them.
So, to that extent, I think Mark Baker is quite wrong. We should linger in the Linear/Hypertext hybrid as long as our customers want us to.
If Baker was offering hands-on how-to, to offer the customers a hypertext-only solution that would be blindingly obvious to them as the superior solution that answered all their needs, then I'd take another think. But right now, I think he's arguing for something that most customers in my industry don't yet want, and don't want to pay for, at the expense of what they do want.
-----Original Message-----
From: Craig Cardimon
Sent: March-15-14 11:54 AM
To: techwrl
Subject: Mark Baker tackles large and complex subjects in his latest post for Every Page is Page One
The information contained in this electronic mail transmission
may be privileged and confidential, and therefore, protected
from disclosure. If you have received this communication in
error, please notify us immediately by replying to this
message and deleting it from your computer without copying
or disclosing it.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Doc-To-Help 2014 v1 now available. SharePoint 2013 support, NetHelp enhancements, and more. Read all about it.
