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Creating Online Help (Part 1): Design and Development Considerations


Greg Cone

Greg Cone

Help Development Solutions, Inc.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Basic Types of Help Systems
  3. Design Principles and Concepts
  4. Three Major Steps to Creating a Help Project and Help Topic Types
  5. Anatomy of a Procedure Topic
Created:
15 April 2004
User Level:
Beginner

The primary purpose for creating online Help systems is to help your users find specific answers to their questions so they can quickly return to their work and be effective. Likewise, online Help provides your users with more general reference information, enabling them to have a deeper conceptual understanding of the type of work they will do. For example, a Help system may explain the capabilities of a certain software application, while also acknowledging its limitations. This article is Part 1 of a two-part series on design development considerations for creating online Help.

In this article, you learn about:

  • Basic types of Help systems
  • Design principles and concepts
  • Three major steps to creating a Help project
  • Types of topics that may be used
  • Anatomy of a procedure topic

Refer to Part 2 to learn about designing windows for online Help, graphics and multimedia, navigation, creating a useful table of contents and index, as well as a step-by-step strategy for constructing a Help system.

Requirements

To complete this tutorial you will need to install the following software:

Macromedia RoboHelp

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About the author

Greg Cone, is president of Help Development Solutions, Inc., an Atlanta-based training company committed to transforming technical writers into RoboHelp experts. He is a Certified RoboHelp Instructor and Consultant who currently conducts training workshops on the use of RoboHelp Office.