Re: Online Help Guidelines

[Brad Mehlenbacher <brad_m -at- UNITY -dot- NCSU -dot- EDU>]

I, personally, wouldn't buy the book of anyone who recommended that I buy
his or her book but, given that proviso....

You might want to check out: Duffy, T. M., Palmer, J. E., & Mehlenbacher,
B. (1992). ONLINE HELP: DESIGN AND EVALUATION. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. ISBN:
0-89391-858-X.

It's aimed at both researchers and practitioners interested in building
online help systems. Someone mentioned that there's a 1993 book out on
building online help systems using Windows; sorry, I can't recall the
authors' names, but a search on online help and windows should turn it up.

Good luck compiling online help style guidelines, btw. Our research for
the book pretty much damned such compilations, citing Smith and Mosier's
(1984) compilation of 679 human-computer interaction guidelines and Mosier
and Smith's (1986) article on how little used such compilations are. We
build help systems like we build bicycles--by looking at exemplar help
systems/bicycles, and then trying to emulate their design....

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> I second Laura Zupko's requests, with the addendum:

> 5) Any experience with FrameMaker on SUN?

> ALUN WHITTAKER
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