As stated in the chapter “Planning a Writing Project, on Paper and Online,” the main principles for online organization are the same as for
books—user orientation and recognizable structure. How do these prin-ciples guide the organization of online documentation?
As with paper documentation, user orientation means studying audi-ence characteristics and giving them what they need. In Standards for Online Communication, authors JoAnn T. Hackos and Dawn M.
Stevens advise: “To provide the right information in an easily accessible manner, you must take the time to understand thoroughly your users and their jobs.”2This advice parallels the advice in the chapter “Know Your Audience,” in which you learned to get acquainted with your audience’s characteristics.
Hackos and Stevens suggest creating user portfolios, which describe members of your audience, and scenarios, “detailed descrip-tions of goal-directed activities that users perform as part of their job activities. A scenario might describe, for example, how users perform a routine task such as receiving deliveries at the company’s loading dock.
. . . At each point in the workflow, you learn how information at that point might support the tasks.” By placing users from your portfolio into your scenario, you can begin to imagine their reactions and infor-mation needs.3
For online documentation, even more than for paper, put yourself in your users’ places by using the document as they would. Anticipate their questions.
Once you have developed a software version of your online docu-ment, you can find representative members of your audience to test it. To ensure user orientation, nothing takes the place of user feedback!
The second organizational principle, recognizable structure, is often an illusion online because, unlike the linear order of a paper document, the structure of an online document is nonlinear and invisible to the user.
In the section “Online Structures,” later in this chapter, you will learn about this invisible realm.
Because the underlying structure of your online document is hidden, your user can become disoriented. You can help him in two important ways: by providing consistent functional and visual elements, and by offering navigation aids, such as a table of contents, to allow him to move comfortably in the online environment.
PROVIDE CONSISTENCY
Design functional elements, such as commands, to look and act the same way throughout online documentation. Have the user select them from similar-looking menus located in the same area of the screen, type them from the keyboard, or click on a consistently placed graphic or textual unit. For example, if the user is to click a command from a list on one screen, don’t have him click a button to issue the same com-mand later in the same documentation. Whatever way you choose, stay with it.
In discussing consistency for Web pages, the Yale Manual for Web Design advises: “Users need predictability and structure, with clear func-tional and graphic continuity between the various components and sub-sections of your Web site . . .”4
Whatever kind of online documentation you design, your consistent use of functional elements will allow the user to recognize the structure and to concentrate on his or her information goal rather than on the means to get there.
Similarly, make visual elements stylistically consistent. If you place boxed text on a blue background on one screen, give it a blue background throughout. Use blinking or moving text sparingly, if at all, and always to indicate the same kind of information. For example, a blinking mes-sage is sometimes used to signal the arrival of electronic mail. You would not notice that your mail had arrived, however, if the screen were dotted with blinking elements like a Christmas tree. You will learn more about screen design and the importance of consistency in the chapter “Planning for Visual Impact.”
OFFER NAVIGATION AIDS
Navigation aids allow online users to find information efficiently. Just as you would provide a table of contents in a paper manual, you can give online users a contents list or list of links they can click to get to a topic. Sim-ilarly, you can provide a more detailed list of topics in the form of an index, commonly used in online manuals and help, or a site map on the Web.
Another way to enable users to navigate your document is to show a set of keys with labels indicating what will happen if you press them. For example, a typical online library catalog, described earlier, shows keys on every screen that allow the user to move Forward, Back, or to Start over.
Well-designed Web sites often give users links that perform similar func-tions, such as Next, Back, Top, and Home.
An additional navigational aid, bookmarking, lets the user electroni-cally “mark” a place in an online document, so that he or she can leave the document and return later to the same place. The familiar analogy of a bookmark is quite apt.
Context sensitivity is a kind of navigation aid used in online help doc-umentation. In this case, the software navigates for the user: When she clicks a Help button, the software “knows” where the user is in the pro-gram and displays information related to the action she is trying to per-form. For example, if she clicks a Help button in a dialogue box, a window opens to display detailed information about the options in the dialogue box and may provide cross references (via links) to task-related topics.
As a user, I’ve frequently been annoyed with context-sensitive help that incorrectly guesses what I’m trying to do or that gives superficial or insufficient information and does not provide a way for me to get the answer to my real question.
Context-sensitive help is tricky to write because you have to antici-pate the user’s questions when you don’t know what action came before, nor why the user has requested help. The book Online Help: Design and Evaluation, by Thomas M. Duffy et al., describes the problem help devel-opers face:
If we naively assume that users want to know about the current tool when they choose help, we’ll often be wrong. Often users are in the mid-dle of a larger task and have just finished adding text. They may want to know about their next goal. . . . If the system guesses incorrectly, it will frustrate users, not help them.5
If you write context-sensitive help, first spend as much time as possi-ble using the product. Your intimate knowledge of its propossi-blems and fea-tures will allow you to help the user experience success.