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.
Subject:Silly but important to me From:jsokohl -at- mac -dot- com To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Tue, 31 Aug 2004 11:33:49 -0600
OK, I know this request for opinion (RFO) is probably silly...but I'm
trying to be consistent and also helpful to my readers. Here's the issue:
I am writing procedures. I'm looking for which of the two approaches is
best, primarily from an info design/doc design viewpoint:
3. Highlight the item you want to work with and then press F4. The
Customer Service Request window (Figure 18) appears.
OR
3. Highlight the item you want to work with and then press F4.
The Customer Service Request window (Figure 18) appears.
So the issue is, would you let the action/result appear in the same
paragraph (list number style, for example), or would you have the result
appear in the next paragraph in another style (body indent, in my case)?
Benefits of the first approach: It unifies the action/result construct and
also reduces the list of actions. It preserves space.
Benefits of the second approach: It segregates the imperative action from
the declarative description of the result. It allows for space.
ROBOHELP X5: Featuring Word 2003 support, Content Management, Multi-Author
support, PDF and XML support and much more!
TRY IT TODAY at http://www.macromedia.com/go/techwrl
WEBWORKS FINALDRAFT: New! Document review system for Word and FrameMaker
authors. Automatic browser-based drafts with unlimited reviewers. Full
online discussions -- no Web server needed! http://www.webworks.com/techwr-l
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archiver -at- techwr-l -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -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.