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Your thoughts and suggestions on this problem are appreciated.
I need to redesign the help of a very complex client/server application.
The current help is Windows 3.1. We are moving to Windows 95 platforms.
The existing project is several files, each file addressing a feature or
process area that was added on. Obviously as the business grows, the
application will continued to be enhanced to support the business, but
adding new help files for each process is not acceptable. Additionally,
the existing help files have process information and other material that
isn't really applicable to help. The result of the miscellaneous
information is that the user must drill through it to find procedures.
My goals are:
Make help helpful.
Define user needs and gear the help to them instead of high level
process.
Design a help project that can be easily updated and can be expanded as
the application will continue to be enhanced.
Reduce size and number of help file(s). Currently there are 14.
Strip out content that is not useful.
Eliminate duplicate information (common to all areas and reproduced in
each file).
Background:
The sooner I do this, the sooner the users will have support they can
use. I am the lone writer. I have the support of management to
accomplish this mostly because they don't know anything about help and
useful documentation is a recent invention at this company. We have
Wextech, Doc-To-Help 2.5, Documentation Studio, although I really don't
know anything about the features of Documentation Studio other than D2H.
My users are new to PCs, some moving from a main frame system, but most
just entirely new to PC world. And we are not only changing the tool
they use to do their work, we are changing their job processes so change
sensitivity must be considered. The application is "in development" and
needs some GUI design work. This is not considered a priority by
development although they are employing standards in light of negative
feedback from the users regarding user friendliness.
What I need is some advice. I have not worked on something this big, nor
have I had the responsibility to redesign (or rather design for the
first time because the help was never designed with the initial
project).
Has anyone experience in this they'd be willing to share?
What have I missed in my goals?
Can you suggest some reference materials?
Thank you in advance for your information and assistance. Please respond
privately to MARTHA -dot- LAUER -at- CEXP -dot- COM -dot- I will post a summary of my
collection to the list.
