Best practice in on-line help writing

[MC Hammer]

Hi everyone
Not sure were to place this topic...I am a Flare user and I am looking for one or several books about best practices when writing on-line help. For examples, what are the "rules" or "do's" and "don'ts" for CSS, topic linking, number of clicks, links within a topic, index building, etc.
I attended the advanced MadCap course on CSS with Matthew Ellison and learnt a few things about CSS but I was wondering if some people on this forum knew about some good books where all of the rules or do's would be compiled? (I am not looking for a Flare user's guide but more for a general guide on how to write on-line help according to rules and best practices that people seem to agree on).
Thanks in advance for any input.
Regards

[i-tietz]

I don't know the approriate literature for you, sorry. But I can give you URLs for further research: http://www.intecom.org and http://www.stc.org.
Maybe they can help you.

[Andrew]

Not sure I know of any good online help focused books, but you could try something like Writing Software Documentation: A Task-Oriented Approach has a lot of best practices in communication that are definitely applicable to online help.

Many of the "how to write online help" books were written back during the 80s or 90s when online help was taking off (like Horton). Wish I knew one to recommend now.

[KevinDAmery]

If you haven't already, you may want to post similar questions on TechWR-L and the HATT list.

[thecase]

Jakob Nielsen is a great place to start for info on CSS, topic linking, number of clicks, links within a topic and writing for the web/screen. He has a lot of info on his website for free:

http://www.useit.com/

If you prefer something more in depth I recommend a book he co-authored called Prioritizing Web Usability - borders link here http://www.borders.com/online/store/Tit ... 0321350316.

He gives explanations for all his best practices and provides data to support his claims. Very handy when someone comes to your office and suggests some bad changes.
good luck.
-case-

[MC Hammer]

Hi again
Thanks to everyone who has replied . I am going to have a look at your suggestions / links.
Regards,