The Need - Autonomous Solutions, Inc. (ASI), a vehicle automation company, needed documentation better suited to the work environments in which their products were being used. They also needed documentation that was written for a wide variety of autonomous systems but could also be maintained by a small number of technical writers.
The Solution - Since the content of most of ASI's documentation constitute trade secrets, I can include only this brief sample I wrote as a preface to ASI's documentation deliverables. I tested a number of different single-source solutions and proposed a Docbook schema authored in Oxygen XML to management. I then worked from existing branding guidelines to modify the HTML and CSS output for the webhelp in order to facilitate ease of use by providing as much similarity between the documentation and the software customers were using. I also created a screenshot template for Adobe Photoshop, so each image in the documentation is consistent and clear. I wrote this sample as an example to help customers become comfortable with navigation and searching.
The Outcome - The now searchable documentation is more useful for customers and can now be easily maintained without having to pay a large technical writing department. Support calls related to questions answered by the documentation have decreased dramatically.