{"id":14,"date":"2003-01-21T05:01:00","date_gmt":"2003-01-21T05:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/?p=14"},"modified":"2003-01-21T05:01:00","modified_gmt":"2003-01-21T05:01:00","slug":"14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/2003\/01\/14\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Writing Web Help<\/h3>\n

I have been working on online help for the past year. When it started I was overawed at the size of the product and the documentation we had to prepare. But I learnt a lot on my way. Here are some tips that you might find useful
\n<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Users don’t read text on browsers. They scan. So highlight keywords<\/b>, action words (‘do this, do that’)\n
  2. Cut down 50%<\/b> of what you have written. Brevity can’t be stressed enough. Please remember that reading speed on a computer screen decreases by about 20-25%\n
  3. Write in active voice<\/b>\n
  4. Write ‘action first. Effect later’ (example: Click ‘OK’. To go to the homepage. AND NOT ‘To go to the homepage click ‘OK’)\n
  5. Write to a singular audience:<\/b> Imagine that the user is sitting infront of you and you’re telling him\/her how to perform a task. People don’t use your software in groups\n
  6. Iterative document design:<\/b>Build a prototype. Test in on users. Build. Test. Build Test… of what value your documenation is if it doesn’t help me in performing tasks? I can’t take it to bed to read it like a novel!\n
    \n\n\n<\/map>\n

    <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Writing Web Help I have been working on online help for the past year. When it started I was overawed at the size of the product and the documentation we had to prepare. But I learnt a lot on my way. Here are some tips that you might find useful Users don’t read text on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[195],"class_list":["post-14","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"jetpack-portfolio-admin-thumb":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Suman Kumar","author_link":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/author\/suman-kumar\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Writing Web Help I have been working on online help for the past year. When it started I was overawed at the size of the product and the documentation we had to prepare. But I learnt a lot on my way. Here are some tips that you might find useful Users don’t read text on…","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s2Gbk8-14","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":137,"url":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/2002\/07\/137\/","url_meta":{"origin":14,"position":0},"title":"How many homepages should your\u2026","author":"Suman Kumar","date":"July 25, 2002","format":false,"excerpt":"How many homepages should your site have? You think I am nuts isn't it? Well, listen to this - Research says '80% of the people use search engines to find new information.' If that is true, there is a great possibility that a good percentage of them would land up\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":728,"url":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/2005\/05\/google-launches-customized-homepage\/","url_meta":{"origin":14,"position":1},"title":"Google launches customized homepage","author":"Suman Kumar","date":"May 20, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"I gave it a spin and me thinks it is damn cool, despite the portal look. Check it out: http:\/\/www.google.com\/ig.(via Search Engine Watch)","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":622,"url":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/2004\/12\/updates\/","url_meta":{"origin":14,"position":2},"title":"Updates","author":"Suman Kumar","date":"December 29, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Folks, due to the tremendous traffic this site is attracting, I have made some changes to ensure that my site does not consume all my bandwidth quota. 1) I have cut-down the number of posts appearing on the homepage. Earlier posts appear under 'Recent Posts'. 2) I have started a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"tsunami\"","block_context":{"text":"tsunami","link":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/tag\/tsunami\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":570,"url":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/2004\/09\/times-of-india-exotic-journalism\/","url_meta":{"origin":14,"position":3},"title":"Times of India: Exotic journalism ;)","author":"Suman Kumar","date":"September 10, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"A couple of days back I came across a post on vichaar.org. The article spoke about how Times publishes adult content on its portal homepage. I was not shocked and I took it all in with a somber resignation. I am not going into the morality (or the lack of\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":210,"url":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/2004\/03\/sify-blogs\/","url_meta":{"origin":14,"position":4},"title":"SIFY Blogs","author":"Suman Kumar","date":"March 19, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, looks like SIFY is going to offer blogging as a service. I registered myself and it took me ages (didn't time myself) to do that. And the interface too appears cluttered, confusing, and some error messages are bad! But let us give them some time, maybe they are just\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":376,"url":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/2002\/05\/376\/","url_meta":{"origin":14,"position":5},"title":"I have been doing some\u2026","author":"Suman Kumar","date":"May 28, 2002","format":false,"excerpt":"I have been doing some prolific writing lately and I hope i sustain this drive. Today was ordinary. Nothing much to write about, ok gotta go and write.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}