Advice and Guidance Needed

["Peggy Luckett" <peggyl -at- dcainc -dot- com>]

<color><param>0100,0100,0100</param>This is a very lengthy request for help.  I am working in an 
environment without the kind of collaboration with colleagues 
that I have enjoyed in the past.  I need someone to bounce ideas 
off of, as well as some guidance.  In February of this year, I 
began working as a TW for a company that is the world-leader 
in signal processing technology.  Despite that lofty description, 
they are a small company based in a small (pop. less than 8,000) 
rural town in the US. 


<bold>First, a little background:</bold>  This is my second job as a ?full 
time ?techy? technical writer.? For about five years, I worked 
for a company that produced computer-based training for 
fortune 500 companies.   We used Authorware, Dreamweaver, 
etc. , but I wrote trainings for all sorts of jobs, put them online, 
headed QC, arranged photo shoots, lead projects, etc.   I made 
the transition from that company to a technical writer position 
with a company that contracted with the Federal Government 
developing systems for the Air Force.  That is a completely 
different world and another story.  


<bold>The present:</bold>  The company I now work for develops 
applications and hardware for companies all over the world who 
manufacture CDs and DVDs.  At present, none of the 
applications have online help systems.  Until they hired me, they 
had one technical writer.  He wore many hats and cranked out 
paper-based manuals in MS Word that were later converted to 
PDF and burned on CDs for the customers.  Many of these 
manuals are huge and all are laden with very ?techy? language 
that is mostly peculiar to this industry and/or this company.  
These manuals are essentially a description of the system 
interface and functionality with a lot of CD/DVD theory. The 
?how to? is there, but you have to wade through lots and lots of 
text to find it.  


I have spent the past four months reviewing current manuals and 
attending training with technical support personnel from 
Malaysia, Taiwan, Germany, etc.,   I?ve edited and cleaned up 
language and made some small changes in format and the 
general flow of some of the manuals.  There are so many issues 
and so much work, I hardly know where to begin. On the plus 
side, the company is very receptive to any ideas or changes that 
I might suggest and the developers are a good group, very 
helpful.  We will eventually begin to produce online help for the 
applications, but because of the complexity of these 
applications and the entire manufacturing process, the need for 
a paper-based manual will continue.


One major concern is that for many customers, English is not 
their first language and there are no plans to translate our 
manuals into other languages.  Our products are used in so many 
countries, it would not be feasible.  But, simplifying the 
language used in the manuals would be a great help.  Akin to this 
problem is that the CD/DVD manufacturing industry is changing.  
In the past, a manufacturer might have a dozen or more 
engineers.  Now, that same company may have one engineer and 
employ a dozen less-skilled people under the direct supervision 
of that engineer.  For that reason, we are now developing 
systems for the Windows environment which are much more 
?user friendly.?  By ?user friendly? I don?t mean to imply that 
just any computer literate person would be able to use these 
systems.  Never-the-less, they are going to be a significant 
improvement.  Of course, that doesn?t mean that our existing 
systems will disappear.  We will still have customers using the 
existing systems and our company will continue to provide 
support and updates for those systems.  My most immediate 
concern is for those existing systems and I am contemplating 
the following:


<paraindent><param>out</param>When the products are updated, edit the manuals for 
understandability and perhaps reorganize the content into a 
more logical flow.  Expand and develop a more extensive 
and useful Index for each manual.</paraindent>

<paraindent><param>out</param>In addition to the Reference Manual, develop a ?User?s 
Guide? for each product.  These would be task oriented 
guides, with step-by-step instructions, but a much 
leaner/meaner guide with no CD/DVD theory.</paraindent>

<paraindent><param>out</param>Develop a one or two page ?Short-cut Guide.?  Many of these 
systems have short-cuts that are not listed anywhere.  
Sometimes they are listed in the manual, but once again, 
they are buried in the body of text.  Nobody reads a manual 
from cover to cover, so I doubt that most users know many 
short-cuts.</paraindent>

<paraindent><param>out</param>Assemble photos and include some explanation/instruction 
about the various boards and connections of these systems.  
These are in the existing manuals, but they are not easily 
found.  I?m thinking that a separate, small visual reference 
would be very helpful.  Something that is not buried in 300 
pages of text.  We fly support people all over the world only 
to find simple connection problems or loose boards caused 
by physically moving the system from one place to another.</paraindent>


I leaning towards following a similar path -- reference manual, 
user's guide, short-cut guide, and an illustrative guide of the 
boards and connections -- for the next wave of products that 
will be developed in a more user-friendly Windows environment. 
We intend to also have online help with those products.  
Whether we will develop online help for the old products as 
they are updated/bugs are fixed, etc., has not yet been 
decided. 


As for online help, I have attended RoboHelp HTML training, 
have used it a bit in a previous job, and have spent quite a bit of 
time learning more about it.  But, I'm not convinced that it is the 
system we <italic>should </italic>use.  Right now, our applications are 
developed in Visual Basic for use in a Windows NT environment. 
 These systems/applications are used in a manufacturing plant.  
Often, they are stand-alone computers.  Most do not have 
Internet access.  Whether the use of Visual Basic and the 
Windows NT environment will continue into the future is a 
matter up for discussion and further clouds my decision about 
what product to use for the development of online help.  Or 
should it?


I?m hoping to travel to a manufacturing plant later this month so 
that I can spend some time with a customer and shadow 
him/her/the process for a day or two.  We have very 
knowledgeable people here and many have spent time at 
manufacturing plants, but there are big gaps of knowledge 
about the entire manufacturing process and, of course, it 
changes continually.  Even so, I think that the more I know 
about the entire process, the more able I will be to write a 
user?s guide that will truly be useful.  


My boss, who was the lone TW for this company before I 
arrived, is very helpful, but I think that he (and everyone that 
works here) is too close to the forest to see the trees. From 
what I?ve related to you, do you think I?m heading in the 
right/wrong direction?  Any thoughts, reference books, 
guidance, or words of advice from you seasoned pros would be 
most appreciated.


Thanks,

Peggy




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