ScreenSteps & ScreenSteps Live
14/08/09 14:51 Filed in: Tools | Publishing on the Web
I've been working lately with another very promising tool: the documentation development environment ScreenSteps and its online publishing partner, ScreenSteps Live by Blue Mango Learning Systems.
Screensteps is an editor for developing software tutorials and documentation, publishable as PDF files, as Word documents, as HTML pages and sites, as embedded material in a variety of publishing environments (e.g., WordPress) or in a multi-author controlled access environment on Screensteps Live. Screensteps itself is a Mac OSX or Windows application which can store documents in development, assemble stored lessons in different ways, and publish to any of the media mentioned above.
What makes ScreenSteps stand head and shoulders above competitors, in my opinion, is its recommended method for developing helpful documents. ScreenSteps makes it easy, by design and by example, to step the new user along from installation to proficiency just as a thoughtful friend would do, focusing not on the design of the application -- its menus, dialogs, etc. -- but rather on answering a series of questions like "How do I make a new document?" or "How do I export a design?". The result supports the user's gradually increasing knowledge by providing information at each point that the user needs to progress and is ready to understand.
As an example, here's the second "lesson" of my documentation for the behavior-management software Citizenship Status described elsewhere in this site.
Both ScreenSteps and ScreenSteps Live are not limited to documentation, tutorials or demonstrations of software environments. But the framework they provide, and the ease of the built-in tools, such as screen-grab and step-labeling facilities, are perfect for building what we all hope for: help that actually helps.
What makes ScreenSteps stand head and shoulders above competitors, in my opinion, is its recommended method for developing helpful documents. ScreenSteps makes it easy, by design and by example, to step the new user along from installation to proficiency just as a thoughtful friend would do, focusing not on the design of the application -- its menus, dialogs, etc. -- but rather on answering a series of questions like "How do I make a new document?" or "How do I export a design?". The result supports the user's gradually increasing knowledge by providing information at each point that the user needs to progress and is ready to understand.
As an example, here's the second "lesson" of my documentation for the behavior-management software Citizenship Status described elsewhere in this site.
Both ScreenSteps and ScreenSteps Live are not limited to documentation, tutorials or demonstrations of software environments. But the framework they provide, and the ease of the built-in tools, such as screen-grab and step-labeling facilities, are perfect for building what we all hope for: help that actually helps.