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Information Mapping vs. Usability Testing of Documentation
Subject:Information Mapping vs. Usability Testing of Documentation From:Sean Hower <hokumhome -at- freehomepage -dot- com> To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com Date:Fri, 5 Mar 2004 07:43:40 -0800 (PST)
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HSC Italian
1. From the front panel, press Cancel.
1.1 if the LCD says blah, do this.
1.2 if the LCD says blah, do this.
2. Do such and such.
Again, my concern is how usable is this method for end-users with
minimal education?
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As others have pointed out, this will defitely cause confusion. There have been some good suggestions, but I have one more. Maybe you can write an introductory paragraph that explains the various possibilities completing this action that you're describing, then write a separate task for each possibility. We're doing this in our online help where only one or two steps are different in each task, but we wanted to avoid providing a bunch of options in each step. Each of hte tasks are in a single topic. Now, admittedly, this would probably work best in an online help/web help, where you can fit all of the possibilities onto a single page. It might not work as well in print.
