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Best practice solutions are definitely the way to go unless you depend
on an approval process and/or developers to implement it. Here's an
approach in a pinch...
If labels remain static despite custom placement in the navigational
hierarchy,
1. Provide an inventory of each functionality including the static title
that is associated with that function, in addition to your
"comprehensive UI navigation section".
2. Provide a *simple* template for Administrators/Users [whoever
customizes views and navigation] to use in documenting the menu trees
that *they* have defined.
3. Make it clear to the users that it is their [Administrator's]
responsibility to maintain documentation of the custom configuration
that *they* have selected for their specific environment.
4. Refer guiltlessly to the static title of each menu item/functionality
as you write procedures.
Although it is [y]our responsibility to tell users where to go [no pun
intended], you can effectively do so only if the application limits the
routes.
HTH,
Lisa H.
-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Orr
My documentation team has a thorny problem with our product's new UI.
With
the new UI, users can choose how they want to view the product, and
items
appear in different folders and menu structures, according to the chosen
view. Additionally, users can create new views.
We do not know how to direct users to find the items mentioned in
procedures. We have tentatively decided to provide no UI navigation info
in
the procedures but instead provide a comprehensive UI navigation section
in
our Basics chapter. But we are concerned that users may find the
procedures
they need, but not go on to use them because they can't find the items
mentioned in the procedures.
Whatever solution we decide on, it must work for us in a highly dynamic
development environment, where we maintain hundreds of documents and
localize them into many different languages.
Do you have other options for providing UI navigation info that we
should
consider?
Thanks,
Chris Orr
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