I recently read Tagging: People-Powered Metadata for the Social Web (2008), by Gene Smith. Smith dives into tagging as a method for adding metadata to resources, which in turn increases the organization and findability of the resources. Traditional help authoring tools categorize resources through folders (a carryover from Windows folders), whereas web platforms typically use tags. Tags are actually a quick and easy way to attach metadata … more »

If you know me, you know that I love WordPress. Which is why this post may seem a bit odd to you. Lately I have been exploring BlogEngine as a possible web platform for help. BlogEngine? That little startup blog platform that runs on .NET and Windows? Yes, I will explain in a moment. But first a quick recap on where we are in the … more »

In my last post, I presented faceted classification and faceted search as an alternative method of organization for help content. While faceted navigation systems are common on the web, implementing a faceted navigation system to describe help content using one of the common help authoring tools, such as Flare, RoboHelp, Author-It, Doc-to-Help,  is more challenging.

[Audio clip: view full post to listen] Download MP3 Length: 25 min. The sixth sin in my ongoing series on the Seven Deadly Sins of Blogging is being unfindable. (The other sins include being fake, irrelevant, boring, unreadable, irresponsible, and inattentive). Admittedly, lack of findability seems more a sin of omission than commission. Being unfindable seems like a sin bloggers commit against themselves. I’ve written … more »

I’ve been waiting for tags to come out for a while. Now that WordPress 2.3 (Dexter) is here, I’m trying to integrate them into my site to the fullest extent. The following image shows the new Tag field that appears below posts. Tags vs. Categories First, to get the concept of tags right, think of tags as index words, and categories more like chapter headings. … more »