The Anatomy of a Help File: An Iterative Approach

Mike Hughes has written about Help File Development in "UX Maters" on May 21, 2007. To quote:-

This article presents an approach to Help file design that focuses on creating a task-centered user experience and accommodates an iterative development strategy. This methodology allows the introduction of user assistance into early test phases—not only getting earlier validation for its accuracy, but also supporting quality assurance testing by serving as the test scripts for interactions with the user interface. This approach can also be a self-contained strategy—that is, one that allows an iterative approach to user assistance development even if the rest of product development operates on a waterfall model.

Periodic Table of Visualization Methods

Ralph Lengler and Martin J. Eppler have written about Visualization Methods in www.visual-literacy.org (2007).

This is a highly visual page and difficult to quote from. There are some 100 Visualization Methods identified, classified and illustrated (with pop-ups), all laid out in a classic periodic Table of Elements style.

Methods cover visualization of:-

• Data,
• Information,
• Concepts,
• Strategies,
• Metaphors and
• Compound forms

providing either

• Process views or
• Structure views

Methods are classified as either providing

• Overview,
• Detail, or
  
• Overview AND Detail

illustrating

• Convergent or
• Divergent thinking

Very creative and information rich.