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Work Write, Inc. Releases Webzine for Help Authors and User Assistance Professionals

PHILADELPHIA, PA, September 6, 1998 - Work Write, Inc. today released the first edition of a new webzine, called Help Matters, a news source focused on design and strategy issues of concern to persons in the user assistance community: help authors, user interface designers, performance support professionals, web content developers, and programmers. Help Matters is located at http://www.workwrite.com/hm/index.htm.

"Help Matters will focus on emerging issues that concern people who create online user assistance, particularly using HTML," says Cheryl Lockett Zubak, president of Work Write, Inc. and managing editor of Help Matters. "I'm pleased that the first issue is represented by some of the best in the business: practitioners from Edward Jones, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Lotus, Microsoft, SCT Corporation, User Interface Engineering, and Work Write, Inc. The articles are insightful and thorough. More than that, they're written by people who practice what they preach, who work in the field, and who know what they're talking about. I'm proud to be hosting this kind of content."

The theme of the first issue is "Building Help into the Product Interface" or what is popularly becoming known as "embedded help." Here's a definition of embedded help from the article, "Design Models for Embedded Help, written by Cheryl Lockett Zubak:

. . . user assistance that is part of the real estate and functioning of a software application, rather than a separate application that floats . . . above, and sometimes behind, a software application.

It's help that is designed as software. Not as an afterthought. Not as part of a separate development effort. But as part of the same development cycle, indeed part of the same code, as the software application itself.

Help Matters is sponsored by Work Write, Inc. a consulting firm that specializes in developing user assistance - help systems, training, intranet support sites, performance support, and more - for the Microsoft Windows and Web environments. Work Write, Inc. President Cheryl Lockett Zubak is a popular, internationally known speaker and consultant on the design and development of online documents. Cheryl is coauthor of Designing Windows 95 Help, considered a "bible" of help design, and a forthcoming book on HTML-based help design. Because of her volunteer efforts and her expertise in HTML-based help design and development, Microsoft named Cheryl one of the four charter members of the HTML Help MVP (Most Valuable Professional) program. Cheryl was again renominated as an HTML Help MVP this year. She was also voted "Best Speaker or Instructor" and "All Time, All Around Help Guru" at the Help Authors Choice Awards announced the WinWriters Online Help Conference in Seattle, Washington, in February 1999.

Help Matters is free for readers, but does accept sponsorships and advertising.

For further details, contact Cheryl Lockett Zubak at Work Write, Inc., 128 South Eastview Avenue, Feasterville, PA 19053 USA. Phone: +1 215.357.3453 Fax: +1 215.357.0695 Email: cheri@workwrite.com Website: http://www.workwrite.com

Last updated, September 1998

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