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.
<snip> I've got
a list of users' common complaints about online help, but I'm a bit short
of specific examples </snip>
The timing on this is superb--I'm just starting to construct online help for
an application (first time, very scary!).
This is feedback from me as a user, and I have lots of very recent
experience, what with downloading all the HATs and using their tutorials,
online user's guides and online help, and also learning FrameMaker on my
own. Not sure which categories these fall into.
1. The online help doesn't contains step-by-step instructions but it doesn't
explain to the user what is happening or contain conceptual or reference
information. For example, in Microsoft Excel, there is a procedure for
inserting an object from a file, in this case another Excel worksheet. What
happens, of course, is that the worksheet is not inserted as referenced
cells (the way you would bookmarked text in a Word file); rather, it is
inserted (as the menu implies) as an object with handles on top of the
spreadsheet. You can drag the object around, but you cannot use the data
from the second spreadsheet. The online help does not explain this well, if
at all. (I'm aware that the fundamental process here is wrong for what we
were trying to accomplish, and we found the correct answer later.)
2. Titles for online help are mis-leading or inaccurate. For example,
FrameMaker includes a document under its Help menu titled "Keyboard
Shortcuts." However, to find keyboard shortcuts for character sets, you are
referred to "See Chapter 3, 'Character Sets' in the Quick Reference." There
is no online help document titled "Quick Reference." You have to go to
Help-->Online Manuals, then click Character Sets. Grrr.
HTH. Can't wait to see the results!
Lisa Wright
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Sponsored by Weisner Associates Inc., Online Information Services
Training & consulting for RoboHELP, Dreamweaver, HTML, and HTML-Based Help.
More info at http://www.weisner.com/train/ or mailto:training -at- weisner -dot- com -dot-
Sponsored by 4Translation.com, Language Translation Simplified.
Instant on line quotations and free samples available for technical
documentation. http://www.4translation.com Any File...Any
Language...Anytime
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: liwright -at- uswest -dot- net
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-31081M -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
