RE: Request of Advice

["Dan Goldstein" <DGoldstein -at- riverainmedical -dot- com>]

Interacting with Help authoring software the way you interact with
people:

User: In the current project, show me a list of the long topics.

HATT app: Define "long."

User: The ones that a user would have to scroll down more than once to
read.

HATT app: On a 1280 by 1024 display?

User: Sure.

HATT app: Here they are.

User: For any topic on that list that has subheadings, split it into
separate topics. Use the subheadings as topic headings for the new
topics, and add links in the first of a set to each of the new topics
below it.

HATT app: Where should I put the links?

User: At the end of the first topic in each set.

HATT app: Define "set."

User: The group of topics that you created by splitting up a single long
topic.

HATT app: Done. What about the topics on the list that don't have
subheadings?

User: Hide everything past the first scroll down, with the word "More"
to reveal the hidden text.

... and so on. The software in this example has no real initiative,
creativity, or sense of organization. It can do nothing to improve the
end product without instructions from the user. The only revolution is
in the communication between the user and the software.

P.S.: I'm just a little worried that Outlook's spell-check suggestion
for ROFLMAO is RIFLEMAN.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bill Swallow
> Sent: Tuesday, June 29, 2010 5:40 PM
> To: Dan Goldstein
> Cc: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> Subject: Re: Request of Advice
> 
> ROFLMAO!!! If people were so easy to interact with we 
> wouldn't have even a mere fractions of the problems we have 
> in this world. Computers are far more compliant! ;-)
> 
> Right, and as easy as you make a software tool to use, you 
> still have the application of that tool to consider. THAT is 
> not something that a tool can decide or assist a user with, 
> no matter how well designed it is.
> 


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