Re: externalizing help customization
Our company is creating a web-based application that will interface with
any customer's data model. How fields and pages are named, basic
business rule, field behaviour, etc. will be configured by editing a
handful of XML files. Some basic workflows will remain constant,
regardless of configuration, but it is possible that every procedure
will need to look different from one customer to the next.
Seems regular ole' FrameMaker to WebWorks files just won't cut it, since
we are not going to be touching up these user docs for each and every
customer. Has anyone dealt with this problem? I was thinking it might be
possible to make the procedure for a particular page just another
element of one of the GUI XML files that the admin would configure. We
can put basic text in there, then highlight the information that will
most likely change (though it would be nice for this stuff to get pulled
from the XML configuration, but that would require serious programming,
something we don't have the resources for..)
I'm working in what appears to be a similar situation. I decided that the "typical" authoring tool approach wouldnot work (yet even after I said we weren't going to need it, they bought RoboHelp for me anyway).
The web application is Java-based and uses JavaServer Pages and tag lubraries, technologies that I am learning about as I go along (because I haven't had the time yet to read the books about them, working on "Designing With Web Standards" at the moment). We realized that we are producing a "base" product that we sell, and that "base' product is one that customers can customize, anything from changing nomenclature to adding whole new sections.
Standard authoring tools simply don't have it in them to handle custom text within JSP tag libraries. Heck, they don't have it in them to produce .jsp pages. So I'm doing a lot of hand coding, where I've created a system that does a little bit of automation.
I'm also using Dreamweaver MX 2004 for the actual authoring work.
I've developed a content template. I use it when I create new topics. I've also annotated it a bit using HTNL comment tags. Customers can use these comments to understand waht type of content goes where. I'm also developing a documentation "User Guide" that will go into more detail about how this application's documentation works and how to author more of it.
We also produce tools that customer use to create their application customizations. These tools run as plug-ins in an open-source development environment called Eclipse. My eventual goal is to get some development resources here so that we can design and develop a help plug-in specifically for our application, so customers that use the tool for their customizations can also use the same tool to create their hepl content and have it integrate seamlessly with the existing system. (I also plan to have it be a tool that *I* will use.)
But this is a case of customizations being pushed to the customer. If you're doing customization in-house, then you have to have the resources to customize the user assistance. If you don't have those resources, then you need to get them--or push back at your project managers and convince them that if they want docs that are equal in quality as the product itself, then the development time for those docs have to be accounted for in the projec schedule.
--
--
Chuck Martin
User Assistance & Experience Engineer
twriter "at" sonic "dot" net www.writeforyou.com
"I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me.
The day may come when the courage of Men fail, when we forsake our
friends and break all bonds of fellowship. But it is not this day!
This day, we fight!"
- Aragorn
"All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given you."
- Gandalf
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