Re: Just in Time Knowledge

[Diane Blake <Diane_M -dot- _Blake -at- TSPB -dot- COM>]

I think if you don't focus on them reading the manuals, but easily
navigating to the sections and to the part of the page even that they want,
they will decide the order of use.






Beth Agnew <bagnew -at- INSYSTEMS -dot- COM> on 10/31/97 08:51:57 AM

Please respond to "bagnew -at- insystems -dot- com" <bagnew -at- insystems -dot- com>

To:   TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
cc:    (bcc: Diane M. Blake/PBTS)
Subject:  Just in Time Knowledge




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John Posada told us about his experiences learning Frame 5.5 and said:
>I found the trick is to learn what you need, to do what you need to do.
>If you don't need a TOC the first week, don't learn how to generate a
>TOC.
I picked this out of his narrative because I think it's important for
technical writers. Not only do _we_ approach learning new tools this way
when we're under time pressure, but we should remember that many of our
_users_ approach _our_ products this way. Sure, we make our manuals task
oriented, but do we refine that thought even further to order the tasks in
the way the user needs them, when the user needs them. This "Just in Time
Knowledge" is a new buzz phrase, and is related to the minimalist
documentation idea as well.
Obviously, in every product there will be a branching of the paths where
different users will need to know about different tasks. I'm currently
working on a suite of manuals and help for a product for which the first
1/3 of the tasks will be common to all users, and then the branching
occurs. Some users will need to know how to move their documents onto the
Web at that point, while others will continue to work internally.
Ideally, manuals would be non-linear, so that any user could follow any
path. (This is where on-line manuals are so handy!)
Anyone want to discuss or share how they handle providing Just in Time
Knowledge?
--Beth
Beth Agnew
Senior Technical Writer, InSystems Technologies Inc.
65 Allstate Parkway, Suite 100  Tel: (905) 513-1400 ext. 280
Markham, Ontario, Canada L3R 9X1        Fax: (905) 513-1419
mailto:bagnew -at- insystems -dot- com    Visit us at: http://www.insystems.com


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