Online user help
CLIENT
Cognology
PROJECT BRIEF
Develop a comprehensive suite of online help pages for administrators and employee users of the Cognology Performance Management System.
Cognology’s performance management system is highly configurable. As such, the help documentation had to take into account the numerous possible permutations for designing the review process, and the needs of the users who did not generally have an IT background.
Red Pony’s consultant designed an approach that would impose a consistent format on each help page, based on a standard system configuration. Each page provided an explanation of the function of the corresponding page in the application, the possible variations, and the set of tasks to establish or modify the settings on the page. The righthand menu was used to link to related pages and online video tutorials (also scripted by Red Pony).
Variations of this format were created for pages incorporating detailed explanations of multiple components such as the group report pages.
The application contained a number of terms specific to the domain and concepts. We created a glossary page with anchored links throughout the help pages, using a different attribute class to distinguish glossary links from page links. We applied US English spelling conventions to user help materials, as this is the client’s largest growth market.
To facilitate the documentation process we used TechSmith Capture to record the developer's onscreen and verbal explanation of each application function. These recordings were a reference point for creating the content. The Sitefinity workflow was used to set up a peer review process. Feedback from the lead developer and management was incorporated into the pages before they were published to the live site.
“Red Pony is a professional organisation and brings a wealth of experience to projects. Their model for our online help site and video learning tutorials has served Cognology well.”