Re: Future of documentation in Web-based apps

Subject: Re: Future of documentation in Web-based apps
From: Victoria Camgros <vcamgros -at- persistence -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2001 16:53:23 -0700

At 10:38 PM 6/28/01 +0000, Kathryn Scoffield wrote:

Hello everyone.

My boss has asked me to research the future of documentation in web-based apps. Our director has mentioned future apps that use "easy-to-use browser based screens that users will not need guides for."

For those who work in web-based usability, are there such screens? Perhaps there's a method of interface design we're not aware of?

Any educated feedback would be very helpful.

My $.02:
Web-based applications are hybrids. They are composed of HTML (and HTML-generating code), but they are more interactive than a typical Web site. They are applications, but do not have the UI standards of Windows or Motif applications.

Often, developers of Web-based applications fail to take this hybrid nature into account. They fail to choose a consistent presentation for navigation, for controls that initiate functionality, and even for help invocation. They simply wing it.

Even when people try to design a consistent Web-based interface, they don't have established conventions to work from. These conventions do not exist (though in some cases they are starting to emerge). Do you suppress the browser menus? Supply an application menu (which won't look exactly like the menu of a real application)? What do you do with error messages? How will the user know whether it's a browser problem or an application problem?

My suggestion: pick something and keep it absolutely consistent. The little (anecdotal) data I have suggests that links for navigation and buttons for functionality are pretty intuitive. Keep navigation to a left-hand TOC (rather than a menu). Use only one window.

Even so, I think you will still need online help/documentation for all but the simplest application. You can put a lot more "help" on the screens than you might in a standard application. My current approach is to use a separate (smaller) window for the help. It has no menus, though we do provide simple navigation buttons (back, forward, TOC) and index and searching capabilities. Don't take this design as golden: we haven't gotten feedback on the first release yet.

I hope these opinions will help you in your research.

Vickie

P.S. Thanks to UIE, Sarah Bloomer of the Hiser Group, and Janice Redish for their seminars and presentations that informed this egregious piece of opinion.


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References:
Future of documentation in Web-based apps: From: Kathryn Scoffield

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