Documenting wizards?

Subject: Documenting wizards?
From: "Hart, Geoff" <Geoff-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 08:28:20 -0400


Wade Courtney wonders about documenting wizards: <<The product is a
web-based application with online help. Should I include the documentation
for the wizard steps in the docs or just put the content on each screen/step
of the wizard.>>

The whole raison d'etre for a wizard is to avoid the necessity for
explaining a task in online help or other documentation. Thus, mention the
existence of the wizard in your documentation, but if any screen of the
wizard seems to require its own documentation, consider it a failure and
redesign it until it no longer needs additional explanation. All
documentation for a wizard should be embedded in the wizard itself.

--Geoff Hart, geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
Forest Engineering Research Institute of Canada
580 boul. St-Jean
Pointe-Claire, Que., H9R 3J9 Canada

"It's one thing to see death coming at the hands of your own creation.
That's part of the human epic tradition, after all. Oedipus and his father.
Baron Frankenstein and his monster. William Henry Gates and Windows
'09."--David Brin, _Kiln People_

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