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Re: Training Materials vrs User's Guides/Online Help
Subject:Re: Training Materials vrs User's Guides/Online Help From:Bill Swallow <techcommdood -at- gmail -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Fri, 28 Oct 2005 22:04:11 -0400
Hi Nicole,
Training manuals are generally contain material that will be covered
in a class and little else. They tend to be focused on specific
scenarios and use them consistently throughout the course.
User manuals tend to be more broad in their scope and tend to cover
all features, not just the ones highlighted for specific scenarios.
They can contain tutorials and the like, but they generally provide a
complete picture of the product and do not focus on one piece, as
training manuals do.
Online Help is also different. This form of documentation delivers
need-to-know task and reference info to users as they need it.
Context-sensitive Help is becoming increasingly common, though there
are still plenty of stand-alone Help systems out there. But with c-s
Help, users get info on exactly where they are with the product, and
good help systems should take the user from that relevant entry point
to other relevant info about the area in which they're asking for
help.
Does this help?
Bill
On 10/27/05, Nicole Bogdanovic <NICNRADI -at- shaw -dot- ca> wrote:
> What are the difference between training manuals and online help/user's guides? And what is the relationship between them? I'm trying to articulate this to my company (I'm the lone writer here) and have yet to come up with a great explanation.
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