Designing and Writing Online Documentation: Hypermedia for Self- Supporting Products, 2nd Edition [Paperback]

William Horton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 24, 1994 | ISBN-10: 0471306355 | ISBN-13: 978-0471306351 | Edition: 2

The #1 guide to creating effective online documentation is now updated and expanded to reflect the latest technological advances, including multimedia.

"...online documentation is a different medium, as different from books as television is from radio or movies from novels. This edition treats online documentation as the new electronic medium it is." -William Horton

Written by an internationally renowned pioneer in the field of technical communication, this is an incomparable guide to the art and science of creating online documents and documentation systems. Rather than concentrating on any one particular program or operating system, William Horton cuts to the heart of effective human-computer interaction and extrapolates a set of universal principles that can be applied to any form of online documentation-from messages, menus, and help files, to computer tutorials and hypertexts. Maintaining an end-user's perspective throughout, he guides you step by step through every crucial design decision without ever losing sight of the final goal-clear, effective online documentation that people enjoy using.

Proven techniques that help reduce support and training costs for software products, eliminate the need for paper documentation, make programs more appealing and easier to use, and more
* A practical, hands-on approach, supported by the latest research and supplemented with dozens of case studies and illustrations
* Includes new chapters on multimedia and computer-based training
* Comprehensive coverage of all online documentation media-words, graphics, animation, and sound
* Updated information on organizing and structuring documents-with examples from Windows, OS/2, and Macintosh interfaces

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Using a practical approach, this unsurpassed guide details how to design and construct effective online documentation systems--from help facilities to computer tutorials. This revised and expanded edition contains updated information on organizing and structuring documents, examples from Windows, OS/2 and Macintosh interfaces plus new research and case studies. Features new chapters on multimedia and computer-based training. Reflects the progress toward multimedia computing with more samples of graphics, animation, sound, video and interactivity. Hundreds of illustrations clearly demonstrate the topics discussed.

From the Back Cover

The #1 guide to creating effective online documentation is now updated and expanded to reflect the latest technological advances, including multimedia.

"...online documentation is a different medium, as different from books as television is from radio or movies from novels. This edition treats online documentation as the new electronic medium it is." -William Horton

Written by an internationally renowned pioneer in the field of technical communication, this is an incomparable guide to the art and science of creating online documents and documentation systems. Rather than concentrating on any one particular program or operating system, William Horton cuts to the heart of effective human-computer interaction and extrapolates a set of universal principles that can be applied to any form of online documentation-from messages, menus, and help files, to computer tutorials and hypertexts. Maintaining an end-user's perspective throughout, he guides you step by step through every crucial design decision without ever losing sight of the final goal-clear, effective online documentation that people enjoy using.

Proven techniques that help reduce support and training costs for software products, eliminate the need for paper documentation, make programs more appealing and easier to use, and more
* A practical, hands-on approach, supported by the latest research and supplemented with dozens of case studies and illustrations
* Includes new chapters on multimedia and computer-based training
* Comprehensive coverage of all online documentation media-words, graphics, animation, and sound
* Updated information on organizing and structuring documents-with examples from Windows, OS/2, and Macintosh interfaces

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 2 edition (October 24, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471306355
• ISBN-13: 978-0471306351
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 7.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,948,981 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A book for someone who has never even written a term paper., April 5, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Designing and Writing Online Documentation: Hypermedia for Self- Supporting Products, 2nd Edition (Paperback)

If you're not a technical writer and you've never seen a web page before, then this book is for you. It deeply covers every banal topic I've NEVER considered before about writing. For example, I've never found it necessary to have a table of contents defined for me, but this book spends a lot of text defining and explaining the most intuitive aspects of writing.

If you are seeking a difinitive argument for why organization is important, this book has 26 pages of cited references for why a project plan is a useful tool. Unfortunately it doesn't give any detailed examples or any advice on how to create a plan. Nor does it discuss how plans might be different based on the project itself or how to take into account a plan that is an interdepartmental project. These are just a few of the questions I had when I started reading this book which have yet to be answered.

This book gives simple guidelines for simple projects and doesn't go much further. Of the 399 pages and 14 chapters, I was forced to skim at least half. This is the first time that I've felt that a technical book wasn't technical enough. As technical writers, our strength comes from interpreting technical material for the less technically inclined. I'm sorry that Mr. Horton couldn't recognize our level of understanding and provide us with more useful reference material than "Designing and Writing Online Documentation."

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great overview and introduction to hypermedia, July 7, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Designing and Writing Online Documentation: Hypermedia for Self- Supporting Products, 2nd Edition (Paperback)

As a project manager in the world of intranet development and more technical development projects, I frequently have to train entry-level consultants on how to develop content for online delivery. This book is the bible I give each employee. It has served as a great foundation for both methodology and understanding of the basics. From there, these employees can move to the next level. Great book!

32 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Obsolete, February 26, 2000

By 

mikequigley (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Designing and Writing Online Documentation: Hypermedia for Self- Supporting Products, 2nd Edition (Paperback)

This book was published in 1994. Even at that time it offered little new to advanced technical writers, although new writers might have learned a few things things from it.

Today, its obsolescence renders it useless. One example suffices: Horton advises writers to avoid using words like mouse, window, command, and file. "This secret jargon baffles users," he says.