Job Aid Brainstorming Help Requested - Has Anyone Used Storyline to Create a Book?

May 25, 2015

I am tasked with putting a dense, text-y policies and procedures manual online to be used as a reference guide. There are nine chapters in this manual, and a lot of text on each page. (Believe me, I have lobbied to go in a different direction, but at the end of the day will do as I am told.) My challenge is placing it in a format that is such that users can find information easily, with a minimum of clicks. I have prototyped a library of tabbed notebooks, but that was rejected as requiring too many clicks. (In  the prototype, it took an average of 5 clicks to drill down to the information a user may need.) I also prototyped a search engine style interaction, but that was rejected as not conducive to browsing (the worry being, that the user must know rather specifically the type of information they are seeking before they enter into the search field.) Scenario based interaction was rejected even before prototype - the department wants a job aid, pure and simple.

So I thought I would put it out to this group and the amazing creativity I have heard/seen coming from it - what are some ideas for going about this? 

Any help is much appreciated. 

 

3 Replies
Mohammad  Hassam

Hi Mary, 

I agree with Methew, Storyline can help you to design some if it. However, I recommend iBook Author for your project. Easy, Sleek, Compatible and Free. The only thing you need to do is to download iBOOK author on MAC and start working on it. Once you are done with the ebook, you can publish it either ePUB or PDF format file. 

Click here to see the video.

Hope it helps!

Regards,

MH

Mary Cropp

Hi everyone,

Thanks so much for the ideas. I am thinking that a searchable PDF or web page is the way to go for the manual. However, I think we have convinced the people wanting the job aid to also do a series of super short videos answering FAQs - a bit more engaging for people than reading through a dry manual.  So, maybe it's a win all around!

Mary

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