Re: [documentation-dev] Finding related terms in the Help Viewer
Uwe Fischer wrote: Hi, Martina Waller wrote: Hi Uwe, we have two types of invisible search words or cross-references in the index: First, the see cross-references that teach the users to use the correct term during searches (ex.: frames, see borders). Second, the see also cross-references that invite the user to extend the search to other areas (ex.: captions, see also legends/callouts) thanks for clarifying the difference of see versus see also cross-references. For the see cross-references we could have a table which lists our technical terms on one side and possible user terms on the other. But I do not believe that this is a real help for the user because he must already know the technical term which he can then look up directy in the Index or Find tab. I would prefer to collect the user terms and insert them as see cross-references in the index. For this procedure, a special feedback tool that should be integrated in the help, would be needed, because users tend to forget their individual search terms after a while. For see also cross-references we do not have the bad and the good terms, but we have terms that are more or less similar. The most simple approach would be a list of synonyms. But I would prefer a sort of word clouds with the most similar words in the center, for ex. captions and legends, and the others in the margins, for ex. names. names could then be in the margin of another cloud with callouts and labels in the center. I really love tag word clouds! You can see one of them at the top of http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS/ Where and how should this be presented to the user who looks up a term in the application help? In the current word clouds, every word is a link to some other place. It would not be helpful to have a word cloud of all the words that are inside a certain help page on top of that page. Yes, because we want to point the user to other help files, with similar content. Should we introduce a word cloud of all the help search words - as in http://www.twitterverse.com/ ? It is not so important that all search words are represented, only those that have similar meanings. And the most similar words should be close together, whereas alphabetical order is less important. But that would have to stay outside the installed help. We can provide a static word cloud with the most popular search terms of the last versions, to be installed with the next version. As a kind of Help 2.0 home page. Yes, that could be a way to do it. But how will we find out which are the most popular search terms? Martina - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[documentation-dev] Finding related terms in the Help Viewer
Hi, when you go to the Find tab page of the OOo help viewer and search for captions, you get a list of pages where that word can be found. Additionally you also get pages where that word is not visible, but it exists only as an index word as in captions; see 'call outs' There are some more examples. For example, a user may try to find information about those frames around paragraphs, but the user does not know that we use the term borders for the lines around a paragraph. So we inserted the frames index word also on the help page about borders around paragraphs, although the word frame does not occur on that page. What do you think how can we make the invisible search words visible? Should we make them visible? They are inappropriate words to describe the contents of the current help page, they are only there to lead the user who does not know the right term to the correct help page. Uwe -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Technical Writer StarOffice - Sun Microsystems, Inc. - Hamburg, Germany http://www.sun.com/staroffice http://documentation.openoffice.org/online_help/index.html http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Category:OnlineHelp http://blogs.sun.com/oootnt - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [documentation-dev] Finding related terms in the Help Viewer
Hi Uwe, we have two types of invisible search words or cross-references in the index: First, the see cross-references that teach the users to use the correct term during searches (ex.: frames, see borders). Second, the see also cross-references that invite the user to extend the search to other areas (ex.: captions, see also legends/callouts) For the see cross-references we could have a table which lists our technical terms on one side and possible user terms on the other. But I do not believe that this is a real help for the user because he must already know the technical term which he can then look up directy in the Index or Find tab. I would prefer to collect the user terms and insert them as see cross-references in the index. For this procedure, a special feedback tool that should be integrated in the help, would be needed, because users tend to forget their individual search terms after a while. For see also cross-references we do not have the bad and the good terms, but we have terms that are more or less similar. The most simple approach would be a list of synonyms. But I would prefer a sort of word clouds with the most similar words in the center, for ex. captions and legends, and the others in the margins, for ex. names. names could then be in the margin of another cloud with callouts and labels in the center. Martina Uwe Fischer schrieb: Hi, when you go to the Find tab page of the OOo help viewer and search for captions, you get a list of pages where that word can be found. Additionally you also get pages where that word is not visible, but it exists only as an index word as in captions; see 'call outs' There are some more examples. For example, a user may try to find information about those frames around paragraphs, but the user does not know that we use the term borders for the lines around a paragraph. So we inserted the frames index word also on the help page about borders around paragraphs, although the word frame does not occur on that page. What do you think how can we make the invisible search words visible? Should we make them visible? They are inappropriate words to describe the contents of the current help page, they are only there to lead the user who does not know the right term to the correct help page. Uwe -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Technical Writer StarOffice - Sun Microsystems, Inc. - Hamburg, Germany http://www.sun.com/staroffice - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
