Technical Documentation Best Practices - Visually Designing Modern Help Systems and Manuals PDF Download

Author: Marc Achtelig
Publisher:
ISBN: 9783943860139
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
Aesthetics isn't the only thing that you should be striving for when desiging a user manual template or the style sheet of an online help system. When creating technical documentation, usability, readability, and simplicity are at least just as crucial. The design should please the eye, but at the same time it must communicate the content clearly. In addition, paragraph styles and character styles should be efficient to use for the author when writing the document. The layout process should be automated as much as possible. Because most user assistance documents are frequently updated during theit life cycle, an automated layout process is much more important here than with other kinds of literature. Setting up templates and style sheets that are efficient to use when creating and updating user assistance requires a lot of experience in technical writing. The rules presented in this book are the essence of this experience. All chapters provide various examples that you can use for inspiration and as starting points for your own designs. Topics covered: Layout basics Setting the type area Choosing fonts and spacing Creating semantic styles Organizing styles hierarchically Recommended screen layouts Recommended page layouts Recommended table designs Recommended paragraph styles Recommended character styles

Author: Marc Achtelig
Publisher:
ISBN: 9783943860122
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 174

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Book Description
Even the best information is worthless if users can't find it. Providing user-friendly structure and navigation is just as important as providing well-written content. However, structuring user assistance isn't as simple and obvious as it may seem. If you think that your document structure should follow the structure of your product's components and functions: You're wrong. If you think that the type of document that you prefer is the same type of document that your clients prefer: You're wrong. If you think that all the information that you have is important: You're also wrong. This book tells you how to structure, index, and link your documents so that readers actually find the information they need. Topics covered: General structuring principles that all structural decisions have in common. Choosing media: Should you provide a printed or printable user manual (PDF), online help, or both? What information should go into the user manual, and what information should go into online help? Which help format should you use? Can context-sensitive help calls be implemented? Should you provide interactive features? Planning documents: Should you put all information into one document, or should you supply several user manuals for specific purposes and user groups? How should you name your documents? Planning document sections: What are the major sections that your documents should consist of? Are there any standard sections that you mustn't forget? Planning topics: What types of information do your clients need? How should you build and name the individual topics within the document? Planning the order of sections and topics: How should you organize the sections and topics within your documents? What comes first? What comes later? Planning navigation: Which navigational devices should you provide in printed documents and in online help systems? Where should you provide links or cross-references and where not?

Author: Jerry C. Whitaker
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1439861609
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 195

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Book Description
We live in an age of electronic interconnectivity, with co-workers across the hall and across the ocean, and managing meetings can be a challenge across multiple time zones and cultures. This makes documenting your projects more important than ever. In Technical Documentation and Process, Jerry Whitaker and Bob Mancini provide the background and structure to help you document your projects more effectively. With more than 60 years of combined experience in successfully documenting complex engineering projects, the authors guide you in developing appropriate process and documentation tools that address the particular needs of your organization. Features Strategies for documenting a project, product, or facility A sample style guide template—the foundation on which you can build documents of various types A selection of document templates Ideas for managing complex processes and improving competitiveness using systems engineering and concurrent engineering practices Basic writing standards and helpful references Major considerations for disaster planning Discussion of standardization to show how it can help reduce costs Helpful tips to manage remote meetings and other communications First-hand examples from the authors’ own experience Throughout, the authors offer practical guidelines, suggestions, and lessons that can be applied across a wide variety of project types and organizational structures. Comprehensive yet to the point, this book helps you define the process, document the plan, and manage your projects more confidently.

Author: Susan K. Schultz
Publisher: Digital Press
ISBN: 148329627X
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 334

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Book Description
The Digital Technical Documentation Handbook describes the process of developing and producing technical user information at Digital Equipment Corporation. * Discusses techniques for making user information _more effective * Covers the draft and review process, the production and distribution of printed and electronic media, archiving, indexing, testing for usability, and many other topics * Provides quality assurance checklists, contains a glossary and a bibliography of resources for technical communicators

Author: Patricia A. Robinson
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1420069861
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 358

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Book Description
Twenty-five years ago, how many people were thinking about the internet on a daily basis? Now you can find everything, including technical and instruction manuals, online. But some things never change. Users still need instructions and warnings to guide them in the safe and proper use of products. Good design, clear instructions and warnings, place

Author: Jonathan Price
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
ISBN:
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 458

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Book Description
In How to Communicate Technical Information, you will learn how to write printed and online computer documentation that is simple, clear, interesting and user-friendly. Technical writers Jonathan Price and Henry Korman map out easy-to-follow methods and include practical tips to help you create hardware and software documentation that is accessible to both beginning and experienced end-users. How to Communicate Technical Information: - Discusses easy-to-follow and user-friendly ways of organizing information. - Demonstrates how to use the art to communicate context, multiple options and results. - Offers new ways to present both quick start options for experienced users and installation instructions. - Presents effective new methods for supplying computer-based training (CBT), including sophisticated graphic and hypertext tours, and demonstrations. - Includes information on online help that suggests methods for integrating this feature into your documentation. Throughout the book, the authors share the techniques they present in their popular seminars as they provide straightforward and interesting ways of organizing information. Price and Korman also suggest practical methods for developing good writing styles. 0805368299B04062001

Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004484515
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
User manuals, reference guides, project documentation, equipment specifications and other technical documents are increasingly subjected to high quality standards. However, it is not clear whether research efforts are keeping pace with this increasing importance of documentation quality. This volume includes studies from researchers as well as practitioners, exemplifying three approaches towards document quality: • Product-orientation, with an eye for usability in various manifestations such as tutorials, concept definitions, tools for users of documentation to find information, methods of eliciting user feedback, and cultural differences; • Process-orientation, in which the quality of technical documentation is regarded as an outgrowth of a process involving sub-steps such as storyboarding, pre-testing and use of automation tools in writing and producing documents; • Professional orientation, in which attention is focused on those who create technical documentation. The volume will be of interest to a broad audience of writers, managers and trainers with technical and non-technical backgrounds, such as: quality managers; communication managers; technical communicators; trainers in computer usage; teachers, researchers and students of (technical) communication.

Author: Andrew Couldwell
Publisher: Owl Studios
ISBN:
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
Laying the Foundations is a comprehensive guide to creating, documenting, and maintaining design systems, and how to design websites and products systematically. It's an ideal book for web designers and product designers (of all levels) and especially design teams. Paperback ISBN: 9780578540030 This is real talk about creating design systems and digital brand guidelines. No jargon, no glossing over the hard realities, and no company hat. Just good advice, experience, and practical tips. System design is not a scary thing — this book aims to dispel that myth. It covers what design systems are, why they are important, and how to get stakeholder buy-in to create one. It introduces you to a simple model, and two very different approaches to creating a design system. What's unique about this book is its focus on the importance of brand in design systems, web design, product design, and when creating documentation. It's a comprehensive guide that’s simple to follow and easy on the eye.

Author: Marc Achtelig
Publisher: Indoition Publishing E.K.
ISBN: 9783943860047
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
Even the best information is worthless if users can't find it. Providing user-friendly structure and navigation is just as important as providing well-written content. However, structuring user assistance isn't as simple and obvious as it may seem. If you think that your document structure should follow the structure of your product's components and functions: You're wrong. If you think that the type of document that you prefer is the same type of document that your clients prefer: You're wrong. If you think that all the information that you have is important: You're also wrong. This book tells you how to structure, index, and link your documents so that readers actually find the information that your documents contain. Topics covered: General structuring principles that all structural decisions have in common. Choosing media: Should you provide a printed or printable user manual (PDF), online help, or both? What information should go into the user manual, and what information should go into online help? Which help format should you use? Can context-sensitive help calls be implemented? Should you provide interactive features and social features? Planning documents: Should you put all information into one document, or should you supply several user manuals for specific purposes and user groups? How should you name your documents? Planning document sections: What are the major sections that your documents should consist of? Are there any standard sections that you shouldn't forget? Planning topics: What types of information do your clients need? How should you build and name the individual topics within the document? Planning the order of sections and topics: How should you organize the sections and topics within your documents? What comes first? What comes later? Planning navigation: Which navigational devices should you provide in printed documents and in online help systems? Where should you provide links or cross-references and where not? Audience: Technical writers Developers Marketing professionals Product managers

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Electronic data processing documentation
Languages : en
Pages : 44

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Book Description
The specific guidelines in this document provide a set of good practices related to design documentation in automated data processing systems employed for processing classified and other sensitive information. This technical guideline has been written to help the vendor and evaluator community understand what deliverables are required for design documentation, as well as the level of detail required of the design documentation at all classes in the Trusted Computer Systems Evaluation Criteria.