Re: Find/Index vs. "natural language" tools

[William Meisheid <wgm -at- SAGELINE -dot- COM>]

Martin, Chuck wrote:

> Here's my question: with a well crafted index, why the need for a
> "natural language" tool?

Chuck,

Randy Morris of Novell and I did a presentation at Help U's
Summer Camp in San Diego on WinHelp access mechanisms in which we
detailed the why of a natural language tool such as Novell's,
which is encased in WexTech's AnswerWorks. By way of note, the
Answer Wizard used by MS is not really a natural language tool,
at least according to Novell.

Randy agreed with me that NL does not replace an index but
augments and effectively replaces Find and makes it much more
usable, especially with the synonym expansion you get on your
queries.

Microsoft normally uses real indexers for their manuals and help
systems so I am surprised if Office 98 skimped on the indexing as
you said. I haven't had a chance to look at it myself, since I
still use Word 7 for almost all my work.

One thing I would like to point out about all procedures that
result in a Topics Found dialog--topic titling becomes very
significant in helping users to choose what best answers their
question.
--
___________________________________________________________________
William Meisheid "Thoughts still and always in progress"
Certified RoboHELP Training email: wgm -at- sageline -dot- com
Sageline Publishing  410.465.1548 Fax: 410.465.1812
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