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Subject:Project ideas? From:"Geoff Hart (by way of \"Eric J. Ray\" <ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com>)" <ght -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA> Date:Fri, 29 Jan 1999 13:05:15 -0700
Stacy Camacho has <<...to pick a topic for a project I've been
assigned in my Computer Documentation II class. I have to pick a
software application to create an on-line help system for using
Robohelp and RoboHTML. I want to do something practical so that I can
put it on my resume and learn as much as I can about creating on-line
help. I've only edited manuals and written manuals for classes.>>
My first thought is that a resume makes a lovely, short project for
online help: it's something you can send by e-mail if you have a
contact who requests an e-mail resume and it's a good test of your
abilities to structure information usefully. Plus, if you keep it up
to date, it's ready to send out as soon as you're ready to graduate.
If (because you're a student) your resume is too short to make a
sufficiently large project, you could always offer the service to
someone else with a larger and more complex resume; teachers and
grad students make excellent candidates for such a project. If
you look further afield (e.g., your local STC chapter), you might
have a good networking opportunity and connect with someone who
later hires you based on your performance on the resume job!
My second thought is that if you've already edited manuals in class,
you could take one of those manuals, analyze how you'd do the job
differently online, and assemble as much of the manual as practical
into an online help file. On a related note, pay close attention to
your own learning process as you work with RoboHelp, and write your
own online help file to replace (or supplement) the one that comes
with the software. You can do this for any software that's handy,
actually. The biggest problem with using existing software is that it
probably already has an online help file, so you'll have to work
closely with your teacher to demonstrate that you're creating
something new rather than copying something that already exists.
Don't skip this discussion, or you could end up with a decent help
file that nobody believes you designed and wrote.
--Geoff Hart @8^{)} Pointe-Claire, Quebec
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
