Standards and procedures
Samples of topic types
View sample topics. (PDF file, 351 KB) -- These topics are taken from several user guides that I wrote for Symantec.
Purpose: To provide real examples of the topic types that are described in the Symantec content model for user guides. The Symantec editing team used these examples for discussion and instruction.
These examples consist of the following types of topics:
- Concept -- Explains a feature, idea, or other aspect of the product that helps the user understand the product and its use.
- Process -- Describes a series of tasks that the user performs to achieve a goal.
- Task -- Describes a procedure that the user performs to achieve a goal.
- Reference -- Includes the user interface descriptions that serve as targets for context-sensitive help.
Audience: The Symantec editing team.
My role: Researcher, writer, editor.
Tools used: XMetaL Author, Vasont content management system, acrocheck by acrolinx.
Corporate style: These topics follow the Symantec guidelines for structured authoring and topic-based writing and meet the Symantec requirements for localization and machine translation.
Publication date: I provided these sample topics in May 2010.