Re: Comprehensive Indexes?

[Lori Lathrop <76620 -dot- 456 -at- COMPUSERVE -dot- COM>]

In response to Jed Clark, who wrote:

>Our company develops a simulation product that is highly customizable. The
>product has now grown to the size where we have decided to produce two
>manuals:
>
>1. A user guide
>2. A customization guide
>
>We feel we've divided the information between the two guides intuitively.
>However, we are concerned that our user's will not be able to easily find
>information if they look in the wrong guide. Here's what we think the
>options are:
>
>1. Each manual has it's own index. The user's would be required to learn
in
>which guide they should look for information.
>2. Several key terms are indexed in each guide that say to see the other
>guide without referencing a specific page number.
>3. Make the guides a two volume set with continuing page numbers so the
>index can be completely comprehensive.
>
>Has anyone else faced a similar decision? We're not sure which method of
>indexing/organizing the information will be most useful for our readers.<

I am guessing that there is probably some overlapping information
between the two guides, and that would make  options 1 and 2 a bit tricky
from a usability standpoint.  Option 3 has more potential.  Another idea is
to create a "master index" (cumulative index with all of the entries for
both
guides) with an alpha code with each page reference; for example,
CG-49 would indicate that the entry points to page 49 in the Customization
Guide, and UG-49 would refer to page 49 in the User Guide.

Some "master indexes" are produced as a separate document; however,
since you have just two volumes, including the master index in both would
be a better idea.

Hope this helps!

Lori Lathrop (76620 -dot- 456 -at- compuserve -dot- com)
President, American Society of Indexers, 1998-1999
Lathrop Media Services, Charlotte, NC
Web site - http://idt.net/~lathro19

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