This is the syllabus as of the first day of class. Revisions to the syllabus will be made available in the Download area.
Week 1
April 1
Introduction to Course
April 3
Introduction to Software User Assistance
In-class discussion of Procedural Discourse
Assign Students to Groups
Read Farkas, “Logical and Rhetorical Construction of Procedural Discourse.”
Read course notes “User Interface Design.”
Examine specified Help systems.
Week 2
April 8
Procedural Discourse—1
Read Grayling, “If We Build It, Will They Come?”
Peruse the “AM/FM Flashlight Radio” instructions.
Submit Procedure Assignment. Bring two paper copies to class for workshop evaluation.
April 10
Procedural Discourse; Scoping Procedures
Peruse Association of Support Professionals, “Ten Best Web Support Sites of 2007 Site Scoring System.”
Week 3
April 15
Guest Presentation: Lori Fisher, IBM, “Delivering the Right Content, to the Right Person, at the Right Time:
Aligning Practitioners with the Strategy”
Read Fisher, “Moving from Single Sourcing to Reuse with XML DITA.”
Read Day, Priestly, and Schell, “Introduction to the Darwin Information Typing Architecture.”
April 17
Audience Analysis and Personas
Standards in User Assistance
Structured Documentation and Structure in Documentation
Publications Plans and the TC 407 Pubs Plan
Quiz 1
Read Kadilak, “Implementing Structured FrameMaker.”
Week 4
April 22
Task Orientation
Task Hierarchies and Tables of Contents
Facets
FAQ Help
Ungraded assignment: Prepare a task hierarchy for a text editor. Bring a paper copy to class and email a copy to the instructor.
Read “Writing with a Task Orientation,” course notes.
April 24
Information Access in Software User Assistance
Read course notes, “Indexing Online Help.”
Week 5
April 29
Formatting Procedures, Help Topics, and Manual Pages
Team Techies Demo Flare
Team Techies Demo Word Templates
May 1
Tutorials and Demos; Wizards
Submit Publications Plan
Read Plaisant and Shneiderman, “Show Me! Guidelines for ProducingRecorded Demonstrations.”
Read Boggan, Farkas, and Welinske, “Performance Support Help: Wizards and Coaches.”
Peruse one or more tutorials selected by instructor.
Week 6
May 6
Usability Testing
Quiz 2
Publications Plans Returned with Review Comments
Examine sample usability test report.
Kantner, Sova, and Anschuetz, “Organizing Qualitative Data from Lab and Field: Challenges and Methods.”
Rosenbaum, “Stalking the User: Practical Field Research.”
May 8
Embedded Help
Read “Help” section of the Windows Vista Developer Center.
Read “User Interface Text” section of Windows Vista Developer Center.
Re-read, Grayling, “If We Build It Will They Come?”
Week 7
May 13
The Documentation Process
Content Management
Submit Usability Test Assignment
Re-read Fisher, “Moving from Single Sourcing to Reuse with XML DITA.”
Re-read Day, Priestly, and Schell, “Introduction to the Darwin Information Typing Architecture.”
Read Severson, “Dynamic Content Delivery Using DITA.”
May 15
Catch-up and Planning Day
Topics and readings to be announced.
Week 8
May 20
KB Articles
Read Douglass et al, “The New Face of Procedural Content: A Real World Approach.”
Examine selected KB articles.
May 22
KB Articles
Week 9
May 27
Innovations in Software User Assistance
Read Jerrod Larson, “Out of the Video Arcade, into the Office.”
Read Bhavnani, Garrett, Flemming, and Shaw, “Towards Active Assistance: Bridging the Generations.”
May 29
White Papers and Marketing Communication
Submit KB Article Assignment
Group Presentations of Prototypes
Read Radding, “The Whitepaper Whitepaper.”
Read assigned whitepapers.
Re-read Severson, “Dynamic Content Delivery with DITA.”
Week 10
June 3
SDK Documentation
Read Delaney, “Wallaby Specification”
Read, Gallagher, “Yesterday API Was Just Another Acronym; Today I Have to Document One!”
Read Sarr, “Creating an SDK: Writing On the Edge.”
Peruse SDK documentation selected by the instructor.
June 5
Course Wrap-up
Demo Course Projects
Submit and demo course projects (Help System, Manual, Embedded Help).
