TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
WARNING - REAL-WORLD INFORMATION STRUCTURING IN PROGRESS!
Kelly,
You knew the answer would be "it depends" -- didn't you???
;-)
As a user, I would probably much prefer having all of the
information about a single item together rather than having
all one type of info for all objects clustered. Too many
cross-refs.
OTOH - and I don't know anything about the info, so I'm
just floating a couple of trial balloons here...
You could pull the "goal" info out of the mix and let it
function as an uber-TOC -- listing all of the goals in one
area and providing links to the specific "how" stuff.
If the "running the query" stuff is all the same, or mostly
all the same, you could put that in a separate section rather
than repeat the same procedure in every topic. This would
work well if the info were truely repetitive and if the
user performed the task often enough to remember the procedure
from one time to another.
How do you see your audience accessing this info? What are
they gonna use it for? Are they searching for a specific
report that will meet their needs (uber-TOC?) or are they
following some specific workflow that demands they run
reports in order or at a pre-defined time? What other methods
have you provided (or do you plan to provide) for accessing
the information?
Have you thought about how to cluster the disparate items?
Is it simply a matter of listing them alphabetically --
altho that would assume that the users know the name of the
report they're looking for -- or can they be grouped by
subject or category?
You really do have a case where the info can be structured
a number of different ways depending on how you expect it to
be used. I'll be interested to hear what you finally decide on!
-Sue Gallagher
>
> From: "Oja, W. Kelly" <w -dot- kelly -dot- oja -at- verizon -dot- com>
> ... A current project I am working on
> just got expanded. I have 64 (current count) areas that originally I was
> only going to provide a <What it is> description.
>
> So, I have 1.) An Explanation of the Activity
> And I need to add:
> 2.) The Goal of the Activity
> 3.) How we run the query or whatever
> 4.) How to use the data
>
> This is for a hard copy manual, and I see many-a-tree sacrificing
> themselves. I am trying to decide whether to make four major sections
> and then go over each item and provide a cross-reference to look at one
> or more of the other sections -or- to make one section, and for each
> item, give the four sets of information and then of course move on to
> the next item.
>
> I am thinking that having all the info for the item right there is
> beneficial, but wanted to throw it out to the group for another opinion.
>
WEBWORKS FINALDRAFT - EDIT AND REVIEW, REDEFINED
Accelerate the document lifecycle with full online discussions and unique feedback-management capabilities. Unlimited, efficient reviews for Word
and FrameMaker authors. Live, online demo: http://www.webworks.com/techwr-l
Doc-To-Help 7.5 Professional: New version with new features, improved performance and reliability, plus much more! Download your free trial today at www.componentone.com/techwrlfeb.
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archiver -at- techwr-l -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Send administrative questions to lisa -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.techwr-l.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
