Q1 Communications Limited

Think of documentation and you tend to think of user guides and reference manuals. Thick, dry, turgid books that are the last place to search for information. Well, it's time to think again.

Good documents are those that are read and easy to read and they don't need to be pages clipped into a ring-binder.

Web pages

All companies that are serious about their business need a web presence. The form this takes is dependant on the type of business, the location and make-up of their customers, the type of product or service that they provide and a hundred other factors.

You might need nothing more than an electronic business card or you may demand an interactive site that allows you to sell a thousand different products to a world-wide market.

Whatever your requirements, you should design your web-site so that it provides added value for your customers: it should give them something that you are not providing via other media or other contact points such as your call-centre, account managers or brochures.

Intranet or extranet?

Larger organisations, or those with a workforce spread around the country, could benefit from an intranet. You can use your intranet to publish forms, processes, procedures and company data in a style that reflects the culture of your company.

An extranet would be useful if you have a number of resellers or merchants distributing your products and services to the final customer. You could use it to publish changes to tariffs or to publicise upgrades, greatly reducing the time to market of important information.

Q1 can write the copy for your site and provide a second set of eyes when you're ready for business.

Online help

Context-sensitive help should be a fundamental part of any software development.

This help should not be the paper manual copied onto the screen. People use it to answer specific questions about the application rather than as a reference source. With help, jumps and links it can be used to provide users with precise information very quickly.

Many help systems come equipped with monitoring software. This allows you to compile detailed reports on user behaviour. These reports will show the terms most searched for and how successful the seraches were. You can use this information to build a more useful help system.  

The Help does not have to be attached to an application. Its adaptability makes it suitable for online training and for providing your staff or customers with live business documents such as process flows and procedures.