Swinburne University of Technology - Melbourne Australia
Future Students - Courses
Duration
Contact Hours
Campus
Prerequisite
Corequisite
1 Semester
3 Hours per Week - online only
Online
International students should have an overall score of 7 on the IELTS test, with no individual band below 7. Students are advised that it is preferable for them to have completed HATC412 before attempting this unit of study.
Nil
Credit Points: 12.5 Credit Points
An online unit of study in the Graduate Certificate of Social Science (Technical Communication)and the Graduate Diploma of Social Science (Technical Communication) of Social Science (Technical Communication).
Aims: Online Help is a vital part of software development: it helps show users how to perform tasks and encourages them to use more of the software’s potential. This unit aims to give students a strong foundation in the theory and application of designing and managing Online Help projects. It also aims to help students develop the technical skills to execute such projects. Objectives: On completing this unit students will understand: • The theory and background of Online Help, including the difference between Online Help and other forms of communication • Different types of Help such as embedded, context-sensitive, field-level. • Help delivering mechanisms • The theory and practice of how different types of Help can be integrated and implemented. And they will know how to: • Negotiate with programmers • Create effective Help navigation (including text links, indexes) • Plan and write a Help for a software product • Use single-source documentation • Apply the principles for Online Help across different platforms (including Mac, PC, and UNIX) • Use Javascript in Help • Negotiate issues involved in Help localisation • Use macros in Help.
Recorded lecture presentations (voice, together with visual material), software training and lab practice via the program Captivate or equivalents, desktop sharing software, online discussion boards, wiki spaces, Skype communications technology, and MP3 files that can be downloaded to desktops and/or MP3 players. These materials will be delivered through the Blackboard portal. CDs of lecture presentations and demonstration software will be mailed out if required
Three assignments, worth 20%, 20% and 40%, and an exam worth 20%.
On completion of this unit students will have acquired: the capacity to evaluate the appropriateness of Online Help in specific situations; the capacity to design and create an Online Help project; the ability to analyse the most suitable delivery platform for a particular Help system; and the ability to see how the development of Online Help development fits into the product-development life cycle.
• Theory and background of Online Help, including the difference between Online Help and other forms of communication • Different types of Help such as: embedded, context-sensitive, field-level • Help delivering mechanisms • Theory and practice of how the different types of Help can be integrated and implemented • Negotiating with programmers • Creating effective Help navigation (including text links, indexes) • Planning and writing a Help for a software product • Single-source documentation • Principles for Online Help across different platforms (including Mac, PC, UNIX) • Practical applications of Javascript in Help • Issues involved in Help localisation • Using macros in Help.
Brockman, R. J., Writing Better Computer User Documentation from Paper to Hypertext, John Wiley & Sons, USA, 1990 Cooper, A., About Face: The Essentials of User Interface Design, John Wiley & Sons \, 1995 Horton, W. K., Designing and Writing Online Documentation: Help Files to Hypertext, Wiley-Interscience, USA,1990 Klein, J.M.E., Building Enhanced HTML Help with DHTML and CSS, Prentice Hall, USA, 2000 Weber, J.H., Is the Help Useful?: How to Create Online Help that Meets your User’s Needs, Hentzenwerke Publishing, USA, 2004 Wexler, S., The Official Microsoft HTML Help Authoring Kit, Microsoft, USA, 1998
