The great paper debate has raged for years.
Paper is tangible. Solid. There's something about it that makes you feel like you've gotten your money's worth. You can make notes in the margins; dog-ear pages you use frequently; highlight important information. There's something reassuring about having that two-inch thick Windows manual perched on your shelf, even if you do go out of your way to avoid reading it.
And even in our pixel-based world, paper still rules. According to an article in National Post BUSINESS, paper consumption has grown significantly in our "paperless" work environment: paper sales increase at 4-5% a year. (Phelps 21)
So, considering our society's obvious obsession with paper and the clear advantages of paper documentation, why are technical communicators moving away from hard copy manuals? It just seems to go against the target market's preferences and against the predictions of many STC bigwigs.
The shift makes much more sense in relation to the Internet's growing influence. When even the most technically uninspired employee can hook up a modem and wheel-and-deal on eBay, the advantages of point and click online help become more apparent.
Online help systems:
Let's take a closer look at the advantages of online help in relation to hardcopy documentation.
Traditional manuals often contain references to other manuals or to other sections within that manual.
The reader has to flip through several pages to get to the table of contents for a chapter, and then another 40 pages to get to the actual topic. It's not really a good way to encourage your reader to continue to the next step. It is nightmarish task for the writer, even with the functionality built into Microsoft Word to ease the process.
This is where online help has a distinct advantage. One click puts readers at the next step, regardless of the actual distance between the two topics in the table of contents. If readers decide that the topic is not what they want to read, one click of the browser's Back button returns them to the previous topic.
Maintenance of an online system is very, very simple for the writer. As long as the HTML page name and file structure remains the same, the link stays valid. And many HTML help authoring systems automatically update the links if you change the file name. Assuming, of course, that you change the name within the authoring environment.
The time it takes to write a manual is pretty consistent. It doesn't matter if you're writing an online help system or a plain vanilla manual. What counts is the time that elapses from the time the manual leaves your computer and arrives, finally, on the user's desk.
Printing takes time. A manual needs to be sent carefully to a printer (don't forget your fonts!), set, approved, printed, bound, and shipped. And then you've still got to send it to your user.
The same 1000 page manual takes less than 3 minutes to compile into a customer-ready online help system.
Fixing a typo or a technical mistake that slipped by your SME is often a major chore for hardcopy documentation; major mistakes might go uncorrected because a manual has gone to print. Online documentation enables a quick fix, even if the manual has already shipped to the customer.
How? Well, with a hardcopy manual, you have to have the manual reprinted, and rebound. An online system, however, enables you to make changes to a single page. That HTML page can then be sent to your customers, whether via email, a patch CD, or as a download from the corporate website.
This ability also enables writers to keep manuals up to date at all times. If a change is made to a piece of software, the writer can update the appropriate HTML topics and recompile the online help system immediately. As a result, whoever is responsible for distributing the software and online help to customers can ensure that the most up to date version goes with the software.
That HTML page can then be sent to your customers, whether via email, a patch CD, or as a download from the corporate website.
This ability also enables writers to keep manuals up to date at all times. If a change is made to a piece of software, the writer can update the appropriate HTML topics and recompile the online help system immediately. As a result, whoever is responsible for distributing the software and online help to customers can ensure that the most up to date version goes with the software.
It seems like a logical assumption that online help costs less than hardcopy manuals. After all, online help eliminates the printing costs associated with traditional documentation.
However, a few notes should be kept in mind about the costs associated with online help systems. Yes, they cost less, but in the long run, not immediately. Here's why:
You will need to hire someone to plan, research, and implement the changes (probably a contractor) or invest time to make a member of your writing team an expert. Either way, it's going to cost you.
A new format will probably require new software package to produce it. The most common software solution for producing online help (the infamous RoboHELP) costs $899 US per copy. Multiply that by the number of writers on your team (no cheating on this one, eHelp built a network check into the software so you can't install the same copy on each person's PC) and watch your department's budget for the year evaporate.
It's going to take a lot of people-hours to implement a conversion between hardcopy and online documentation. Consider how long it will take to make your writers fluent in the new software package, convert the documents, and handle any extra technical issues that may pop up. Don't forget the time required to create new templates or the style and wording ramifications that occur with a shift in medium.
The bottom line is this: you can expect to save money. Just don't pitch it to your supervisor as an instant savings because it will take time, maybe upwards of a year, before the costs of online help drop below those of hardcopy manuals.
There's an element of magic in online help that hardcopy documentation lacks. Demos of online help receive audible gasps from the audience. We actually heard the odd "ooh" and "cool."
Online help encourages users to click around and explore; a lot of users find it difficult to resist the lure of an unvisited link.
Of course, as with every technology, there are disadvantages to online help. Some of them are minor, but others have a significant impact of the use of your help system and large effects on your audience.
You should consider:
As wonderful as online help is, you'll always find people that hate it. Users that hate online help, and therefore refuse to use it, are going to produce technical issues. They'll tie up support lines or co-workers asking questions that they could look up easily. Short of tying these people up and making them deal with the online help, you're stuck with the support issues. If this type of person represents the majority of your audience, you may want to reconsider the switch between hardcopy and online documentation. After all, the audience is all-important.
The problem is two-fold, however. You may have a rebellion on your hands when you require your writing team to learn a brand new technology and produce a different genre of help. Be prepared to deal with truckloads of frustration and muttering during the adjustment period; learn to ignore the wistful refrains of "if only it worked like BLAH does" that echo through the office. It will stop eventually.
For those of you who think that you're going to save the environment one tree at a time using online help, forget it. Online help is definitely not the answer.
Logic dictates that you will use less paper; reality indicates otherwise. The ability to print is a really big deal.1 You will discover that your audience loves printing useful topics. And in typical human nature, your readers will lose the printouts and make more.
Online help systems are obviously very useful and are becoming more important for distributing information. Just take a look at the Microsoft Developer's Network, specifically the library. It is physically impossible to maintain the MSDN site as a hardcopy document; the sheer amount and breadth of information, not to mention the constantly shifting content, would make a hardcopy version of the document unmanageable for its writers and unintelligible for its readers. Online help is the best solution for that document's purpose, since the technology suits its topics and target audience. Microsoft's use of online help for the MSDN site is reflexive: the information is reflected in the delivery of the topics.
But consider this: on a more universal scale, is online help answering the requirements of its users?
Yes.
But only to a point.
This point is where the study of rhetoric and the profession of technical writing coincide: audience.
A writer must consider the potential audience. Good technical writers keep their writers in mind everyday when they write: the information contained in manuals must be translated from "programmer" language into an appropriate level of "user" language.
With the introduction of online help, technical writers must consider even more factors:
Bluntly, if your average user is 56, hates computers, and resents that his pea-green Selectric is obsolete, online help is probably not a reasonable solution. Your work will go to waste, because your user will never read it.
But then again, who does RTFM?