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Subject:Re: On-line Documentation vs Training Materials From:"M. Dannenberg" <midannen -at- SI -dot- BOSCH -dot- DE> Date:Tue, 16 Sep 1997 12:01:08 +0200
Annalee Foster schrieb:
> At the moment, the manuals are all-purpose, meaning they are not only
> used for service and installation, but also provide a background for
> training courses. The documents are not currently written to
accomplish
> any of these tasks well, primarily because they try to do too much by
> themselves (IMHO).
>
> To complicate this further, I have many requests to replace our paper
> docs with online documentation. The current materials are cumbersome
> (to say the least) and difficult for the FE's to lug around with them.
> They travel 50 to 80% of the time. I've been resisting the idea to
> simply dump the manuals onto a CD ROM and send them out because it
seems
> like a bandaid solution that will, in the end, provide only minimal
> benefit to the field.
>
I think you're facing two different problems here, each of which
requires its own solution. The first problem seems to be training, the
second providing online reference material to FEs. I would split up the
manuals accordingly (you can always put everything under one cover if
necessary). I would develop a tutorial for distribution on paper that
covers everything a new user needs to know and is structured for
pedagogical purposes. Such material is typically worked through while
using the program it describes, so online just doesn't work very well.
> How do I make this documentation work best for the field? Is there a
> reasonable solution that will provide installation, service and
> training
> in one document that can be developed for on-line use?
The FEs will mainly be interested in reference information which is far
more suitable for online distribution. You're absolutely right to resist
simply bunging everything on a CD-ROM. A useful online document is
structured very differently from a useful paper document. For one thing,
a full page cannot be displayed legibly on a 640x480 notebook screen.
Also, scrolling around a page is particularly cumbersome on a notebook,
so you really have to adjust your page size. A5 landscape with 12 point
sans-serif text should work reasonably well.
Try to structure the stuff into page-size chunks, and provide good
access features (hyperlinked index, TOC, search facility) and the FEs
will be your friends. I don't know what tools you're using, but
everything I've described here could be done without too much hassle in
Frame and Acrobat. In Frame you can easily reformat a document with
different page sizes. It also generates all the hyperlinking info for
Acrobat, so you can automatically generate a document with all the
necessary access features.
Mike
--
Mike Dannenberg
ETAS GmbH & Co.KG
midannen -at- si -dot- bosch -dot- de
--
Mike Dannenberg
ETAS GmbH & Co.KG
midannen -at- si -dot- bosch -dot- de
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