Show off your H&M Creations

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Rossco
Posts: 185
Joined: Tue May 02, 2006 6:43 am
Location: Wellington, New Zealand

Show off your H&M Creations

Unread post by Rossco »

Hi,
I thought I may as well start this topic as suggested by Tim, as a place where H&M users of all levels can place links to thier creations (if they wish) and at the same time ask others "How did they do that!".

Also it would be a great place to get Constructive feedback and suggestions etc.

I will start with my own (no laughing please) I have only been doing H&M stuff for 2 weeks! ;)

Brief background.
I generally create Multimedia CBT training modules, and until now, did not really think that Help Authoring Software would be something I would need, but now I have this work on that requires both Help Authoring and a little Interactive training or guidance, for which I need to use H&M all the way, because of restrictions within thier IT network.:)

The site link below is at the extreme beginnings of developement and is not accurate or very populated as I put it up to get the Hospital I am doing it for to test for layout and design and usability. Plus I am not doing this onsite,so is more convenient.

http://www.rhh.net.nz/

The welcome screen is not populated, but if you click on the Clinics link and then the Oncology link, then onto Questions link, you will see the interactive component. Very very basic at this stage, but this will also become a help file for everyone from new staff to experienced users.

Again, this is only very basic and still in the early design phase.

I have used Invisible topics for the questions.

I would welcome any critique and suggestions you have. :)

happy H&M'ing

cheers
Rossco
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Dean Whitlock
Posts: 577
Joined: Thu Sep 01, 2005 5:59 pm
Location: Thetford Center, Vermont USA
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Unread post by Dean Whitlock »

Hi Rossco,

Thanks for putting up the link to your on-going project. It looks like you've got it working very smoothly. I assume you've put your buttons in a table or two to line them up? It's a nice way of leading the questioner through the set of questions, as long as you can keep it to simple yes/no alternatives (although you can obviously handle more than two possible answers, I suppose there will be a point at which the selection count might get so high as to be confusing to both the asker and the answerer).

I have there design suggestions:

Try to keep all the navigation buttons the same size. "Back" is much smaller than "Back to Oncology Main Page" and I find that awkward (for some reason - could just be me :roll: ).

Put a little instructional text in the answer boxes to make it more intuitive for first-time users. For example: "Refer patient to..." or "Call..."

For that matter, it wouldn't hurt to have an instruction at the top of each page; for example: "Select the Department:" "Follow question sequence to determine proper referral." Something like that. After the first two times through, the user won't need or even notice the instructions, but they will save a few moments of uncertainty for the beginner.

Let us know when you've got something new to show.
Thanks,
Dean
DavidGross
Posts: 54
Joined: Sat Apr 01, 2006 4:22 am
Location: U.S.
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Unread post by DavidGross »

Wanted to let you know that I went to the site link with IE and when I clicked on the buttons the screen moved to that topic but the main page was empty.

Don't know why, but passing on in case there is a browser output issue...

David
D. Gross
Rossco
Posts: 185
Joined: Tue May 02, 2006 6:43 am
Location: Wellington, New Zealand

Unread post by Rossco »

Dean Whitlock wrote:Hi Rossco,

Thanks for putting up the link to your on-going project. It looks like you've got it working very smoothly. I assume you've put your buttons in a table or two to line them up? It's a nice way of leading the questioner through the set of questions, as long as you can keep it to simple yes/no alternatives (although you can obviously handle more than two possible answers, I suppose there will be a point at which the selection count might get so high as to be confusing to both the asker and the answerer).
Yep tables used there for the buttons.
Try to keep all the navigation buttons the same size. "Back" is much smaller than "Back to Oncology Main Page" and I find that awkward (for some reason - could just be me :roll: ).
Yeah, I had similar feelings about that, but unfortunately the people who it is for have dictated the design and layout, despite my suggestions and recommendations, but I am working on it ;)
Put a little instructional text in the answer boxes to make it more intuitive for first-time users. For example: "Refer patient to..." or "Call..."
DOH!, missed that, thanks :)
For that matter, it wouldn't hurt to have an instruction at the top of each page; for example: "Select the Department:" "Follow question sequence to determine proper referral." Something like that. After the first two times through, the user won't need or even notice the instructions, but they will save a few moments of uncertainty for the beginner.
Good point, will suggest that to them also :)

Thanks Dean, much appreciated

cheers
Rossco
Rossco
Posts: 185
Joined: Tue May 02, 2006 6:43 am
Location: Wellington, New Zealand

Unread post by Rossco »

DavidGross wrote:Wanted to let you know that I went to the site link with IE and when I clicked on the buttons the screen moved to that topic but the main page was empty.

Don't know why, but passing on in case there is a browser output issue...

David
Hi David,
are you referring to the main welcome page?

There is nothing lon that page at the moment.

cheers
Rossco
Roy_H
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Apr 06, 2005 3:27 pm

My creation

Unread post by Roy_H »

Nice idea, to get constructive feedback and suggestions! Ofcourse, if we all can learn from each other, we all benefit.

My creation is an online help website for our customers, who are using our content management system. Hopefully anyone can give me some feedback or suggestions on improving this H&M creation. Just for your information, the used language is dutch :roll:

http://www.cmshelp.nl

Greets
Roy
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Tim Green
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Unread post by Tim Green »

Roy,

It looks nice. I like the way you've integrated the email and print buttons. However, personally I would use a slightly larger left and top margin, it looks a little bit cramped at the moment.

Another thing I like to do is make sure that the TOC links are not underlined even if that is the standard setting of the user's browser, it looks more like a "help" that way. To do this add the following code at the beginning of the <style> block in the Table of Contents template in the Browser-based Help section (you can do the same in the Keyword Index and Search templates as well if you want):

Code: Select all

a {color: blue; text-decoration: none;}
a:hover {color: blue; text-decoration: underline;};
a:visited {color: blue; text-decoration: none;} 

This will make sure that links are only underlined when the mouse pointer is over them. The color will only affect the underline because the colors of the texts are controlled by the other styles. Theoretically you could also use background-color: to highlight instead of underlining but that will also highlight the book icons and that doesn't look so good...
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

Private support:
Please do not email or PM me with private support requests -- post to the forum directly.
DavidGross
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Location: U.S.
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Unread post by DavidGross »

In response to Rossco's question...I was looking at the page with the icons. When I clicked on the icons I then saw blank "workspace" screens...

David
D. Gross
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Dean Whitlock
Posts: 577
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Location: Thetford Center, Vermont USA
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Unread post by Dean Whitlock »

Roy,

The site looks great. I like the little site map icon. How did you arrange to have the print and email buttons remain in the same location? Are all of your topics set into tables? Or is there a CSS function you were able to use? I agree with Tim about the underlines on the site map; otherwise I couldn't see anything I thought needed to change. Of course, I can't speak Dutch, so can only comment on the layout, not the spelling or grammar! :wink:

Thanks,
Dean
Rossco
Posts: 185
Joined: Tue May 02, 2006 6:43 am
Location: Wellington, New Zealand

Unread post by Rossco »

DavidGross wrote:In response to Rossco's question...I was looking at the page with the icons. When I clicked on the icons I then saw blank "workspace" screens...

David
Thanks David,
yes, several of the pages have not been populated as yet. Thanks for taking the time to tell me :)
regards
Rossco
Rossco
Posts: 185
Joined: Tue May 02, 2006 6:43 am
Location: Wellington, New Zealand

Unread post by Rossco »

Roy,
looks nice and I really like what you have done with the nested (I think that is what it is called) sub topics in the FAQs page..

More stuff for me to learn ;)

cheers
Rossco
Roy_H
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Apr 06, 2005 3:27 pm

Unread post by Roy_H »

Tim, Dean, Rossco,

Thanks a lot for your feedback. Always nice to hear I'm on the right track.

Tim, you're absolutely right about the underlining of the TOC links. I wanted to change that recently, but couldn't find the right solution. I certainly will fix it with your code. A slightly larger left and top margin is also a good idea, I'll get into it.

Dean, about the print and email buttons: this is indeed a table solution. Maybe the attached screenprint will help you to figure it out :wink:

Greetings
Roy
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Tim Green
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Unread post by Tim Green »

Roy,

There were two mistakes in the link code I posted, the order was wrong and there was a spurious ; character after one of the closing } braces. It should be:

Code: Select all

a {color: blue; text-decoration: none;} 
a:visited {color: blue; text-decoration: none;}
a:hover {color: blue; text-decoration: underline;} 
Hover must always come last in the sequence, otherwise it won't work properly in some browsers. Sorry about that, yesterday was a very busy day... :?
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

Private support:
Please do not email or PM me with private support requests -- post to the forum directly.
jotrane
Posts: 48
Joined: Wed Mar 22, 2006 6:53 pm

Unread post by jotrane »

Roy-

You might want to consider making your header stationary so that the forward and back buttons are always available. Other than that it looks good considering I can't read, is it "german"? only English for this guy.

JO
Rossco
Posts: 185
Joined: Tue May 02, 2006 6:43 am
Location: Wellington, New Zealand

Unread post by Rossco »

Hi all,
well I am not sure whether to show this off as yet (or to show it off at all), but time has gone by too long and I would like to get some feedback...

This site is not really a help file as such, I prefer to call it a Electronic Desk File, which staff will use on a daily basis for general info on clinic etc. The format is vertainly not what you pro's would call a help file or manual..;)

First, a couple of things you should know....

1: The main welcome page has a few dash lines on it just above the 'latest Updates" table, this is a problem that I have fixed now but not uploaded (the problem was that while I was pressing the Enter key to move the table down, I had Underline switched on so for some reason, whether there were letters there or not, it decided to underline the beginning of the carraige return. This only showed up when the file was compiled and not in H&M itself)

2: The layout and design of the whole file, is decided by the team that wants this done, all I have done is make it how they want it, which seems to be more of a interactive button pressing slide show or the like, however they like it and prefer it that way. I did prefer to use expanding sections in the General Information pages, but they wanted it all layed out as one page.

3: Under the templates sections of some clinics, the tables are basic and I have not yet made them with non scrollable headers/rows etc, but this is on the change list.

4: There is loads of content to be added yet, as I am working on his part time..it..well takes loads longer to complete ;)

5: I have password protected the site as it has email addresses in, so don't want to risk the site being scanned for email addresses etc.

6: If you are interested, you can log on using the user Id

"tempuser" and pwd of "bones" the access will be there for 3 days....

site address is http://www.rhh.net.nz

I welcome your critiques and suggestions...

Cheers
Rossco
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