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Home > Training: HTML-based help: Building help into software
Building Help into Software (Developing Embedded Help)
Availability: Public or onsite
Course duration: 2 days
Cost: Contact us for pricing
Other courses to consider: Developing HTML-Based Help: Design, Trends, and Strategies
Embedded help is user assistance that is part of the real estate and behavior of the user interface of a software application, rather than a separate window that floats (often to our dismay) above, and sometimes behind, a software application.
It's help that's designed as software. Not as an afterthought. Not as part of a separate development effort. But as part of the same development, indeed part of the same code, as the software application itself.
While the idea of "help as software" is one that software developers, user interface designers, and technical communicators have traditionally embraced in theory, the fact is that help as part of software has not been widely studied and praticed by the mainstream software development community (outside of those of us who are into "hard core" performance support). This course will help you to uncover practical strategies for embedding user assistance into your products.
In this course, we'll concentrate on:
- Understanding what embedded help really is
- Understanding how assistance and software can and should coexist
- Examining the main models of embedded help
- Looking a a variety of examples of embedded help in practice
- Understanding the process of developing embedded help
- Understanding content development issues for building help into the interface
- Reviewing design and technology issues in implementing embedded help
During this course, you will learn about the process of paper prototyping (used during most exercises).
- For onsite courses, the instructor recommends that you invite staff from other groups to the class, and that exercises are completed in groups. For example, a group might consist of programmers, interface designers, and technical writers.
- The course uses a case study (sample software application) as the focus of the prototyping process. We can use a generic case study or use a product under development by your organization. If you would like to use one of your own products, be sure to speak with the instructor before the course.
Note: Outlines are subject to change without notice but will cover the same content.
Course outline
Part 1. About This Course
- What does this course cover?
- A few assumptions about you
Part 2. What is embedded help?
- A preliminary definition
- Why build documentation into the interface?
- If it's such as good idea, why embedded help only now?
Part 3 A review of the case study
- About the case study
- Interface and user assistance problems to work on
- Learning to use the paper prototyping process
Part 4. Developing a user model
- What are user models?
- Why are user models so important to embedded help?
- Researching a user model
- Developing a "persona" from user research
Part 5. Understanding context-sensitive help
- Context-sensitivity as "loose embedding"
- Why context-sensitivity is important to understand
- Developing context-sensitivity in HTML Help
- Developing context-sensitivity in HTML-based help
- The changing role of context
Part 6. Developing stationary embedding
- What is stationary embedding?
- Some user interface guidelines
- Documenting widgets
- Building help into dialog boxes
- Creating a persistent help window
Part 7. Writing and content design strategies: part 1
- The "lincoln log" theory of writing
- The architecuture of embedded topics
- Chunking tasks
- Writing field information
- Writing tips
Part 8. Developing process embedding
- The function of process embedding
- The "guidance system" alternative
- Some user interface guidelines
- Documenting errors and missteps
- The role of training cards
- Some ideas for developing wizards
- Writing strategies for process embedding
- Content design strategies for stationary embedding
- Developing an inductive interface
Part 9. Writing and content design strategies: part 2
- What are embedded topics like?
- Determining and controlling topic length
- Writing procedures
- Developing relationships and navigation
Part 10. Developing instructional embedding
- The function of instructional embedding
- The relationship between process and instruction
- The animation/multimedia alternative
Part 11. Developing content and agent embedding
- The function of context embedding
- The changing nature of context
- The function of agent embedding
- How is agent embedding best used?
Part 12. Retooling the interface
- A change in process and thinking
- Some technical concerns
- Design issues to consider
- Tools for you and your programmer
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