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Re: Evaluation Process - HATs

Subject: Re: Evaluation Process - HATs
From: Rick Stone <rstone75 -at- kc -dot- rr -dot- com>
To: Matt Moore <MMoore -at- ConnectWise -dot- com>
Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2011 13:07:58 -0500

Hi Matt

Just an observation here, but have you or your company performed any real research on what your customers need or expect from your help?

My reason for asking is that you may discover that if you elect to switch to a more "modern" help output, they will become frustrated and angry as a result. Case in point is Microsoft. I hate Hate HATE the "new and supposedly *improved*" help they now supply with Office. I get this horrible experience that pulls from the web first. There is no Table of Contents or Index present to assist me in determining if I'm remotely in the right area for what I'm seeking help with. I see Adobe headed in an eerily similar direction with their "Community Help" abomination. I see reports from many of my Adobe Community Professional peers about how bad of a fail the help seems to be.

Sure it looks different and more "modern". But does that *REALLY* help anything or anyone if it fails to do the intended job?

As a user, I could care less how sexy the help looks. I want ANSWERS! Efficient, fast and helpful.

Just sayin... Rick :)

On 7/21/2011 3:28 PM, Matt Moore wrote:

I am in charge of deciding on a new documentation platform/tool for our software company and putting a plan together for the conversion. We are evaluating Robohelp (Technical Suite), Flare (MadPak) and even considering Dreamweaver. We already have DW in house and many other Adobe products.
What are your thoughts now in July of 2011. So much of the information online that I have found is dated..
Do you have any comments and thoughts considering our situation or your personal experiences with one or both that might help me.
Input -We have over 1000 pages on a web based content management system that has become unmanageable and there are a lot of technical issues with this system. All of these pages will need to be converted using with a HTML import or copy/paste.

Output - We will be outputting to WebHelp and will likely output to PDF as well in some cases. Mobile output is a possibility in the future as well.

Format - One of our bigger concerns to customizing the output to look more modern. The frame based output looks dated to us and may look like we are going backwards to our customers. It sounds like with Flare there is some ability to customize the javascript. I have not yet had time to research RH ability to customize the output. We do internal graphic designers and web developers.

Support - I keep hearing that Flare is very good and RH is not so good. Agree?

Features - Seems to me that they are probably fairly similar and surely Flare will be better at some things and RH will be better at others.
Experience - Our technical writer has 2 years of Flare experience and very little RH experience.

I appreciate it!!!

Matt Moore Business Consultant
Email: MMoore -at- ConnectWise -dot- com



^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Create and publish documentation through multiple channels with Doc-To-Help.
Choose your authoring formats and get any output you may need. Try
Doc-To-Help, now with MS SharePoint integration, free for 30-days.
http://www.doctohelp.com

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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Create and publish documentation through multiple channels with Doc-To-Help.
Choose your authoring formats and get any output you may need. Try
Doc-To-Help, now with MS SharePoint integration, free for 30-days.
http://www.doctohelp.com

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References:
Evaluation Process - HATs: From: Matt Moore

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