TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
A bunch of years ago I worked for TiVo, the DVR company. Although I
didn't work directly for the customer support and knowledge base
people, I worked right next to that group, and I got a good feel for
how they designed things. They had a handful of writers designing and
writing the content who put a lot of thought into the structure. The
knowledgebase was used both for the customer support people on the
phone, and also online -- you can see the knowledgebase here:
It is 99% task-based. No concepts at all. Browsing around it for a
little while just now I found two articles with concepts, and they
were a single paragraph apiece.
Laura
On Feb 2, 2011, at 7:47 AM, John Posada wrote:
> Hi, guys...As I've said, I've been doing an analysis of our customer
> support knowledgebase to look for areas of improvement.
>
> I've introduced the concept modeled after the DITA methodology of
> Concept/Task/Reference and it has caught on strong.
>
> My question...for online help or web based help for consumer-type
> services, specifically phone service, if you have thought about it, do
> you find that you found a ratio of concept to task that worked out
> best for you?
>
> For instance, I'm proposing the premise that since this is for a
> support site, we should be doing less explaining issues compared to
> more presenting procedures on how to do and fix things; the logic
> being that the average telephone customer doesn't care as much about
> how something works as they do with getting it to work so they can
> make their call and get on with their life.
>
> Keep in mind, I'm not writing for the techy geek, but for the average
> Joe Q Public with a telephone.
>
> Has anyone else thought about this and if so, know of any best
> practices that supports this premise?
> --
> John Posada
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> Create and publish documentation through multiple channels with Doc-
> To-Help.
> Choose your authoring formats and get any output you may need. Try
> Doc-To-Help, now with MS SharePoint integration, free for 30-days.
>http://www.doctohelp.com
>
> ---
> You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as lemay -at- lauralemay -dot- com -dot-
>
> To unsubscribe send a blank email to
> techwr-l-unsubscribe -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> or visit http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/options/techwr-l/lemay%40lauralemay.com
>
>
> To subscribe, send a blank email to techwr-l-join -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
>
> Send administrative questions to admin -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot- Visit
>http://www.techwr-l.com/ for more resources and info.
>
> Please move off-topic discussions to the Chat list, at:
>http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/listinfo/techwr-l-chat
>
Create and publish documentation through multiple channels with Doc-To-Help.
Choose your authoring formats and get any output you may need. Try
Doc-To-Help, now with MS SharePoint integration, free for 30-days. http://www.doctohelp.com
---
You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- web -dot- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-
