Techniques for Prompting and Assisting with Structure

Hi,

This is the piece Greg, Barry and Karen put together on prompting and 
assisting with structure for their work item. I'll start adding it to 
the draft, but may not be ready for the call.

Thanks for sending this in.

Cheers,
Jan

----

3.1.1 (11): Techniques for Prompting and Assisting for Document Structure

1)	The application must alert Authors to the occurrence of unstructured 
content – The authoring tool must provide an indication that content has 
not been structured.
  a)	Constant Indication
   i)	Flag – A visual indicator that may function as a constant reminder 
that structure is missing.
   ii)	Notice – Message indicating status of content structure. Example: 
notification on the status line.
  b)	Scheduled Interval – A flag or notice that appears to the author at 
an established interval of time.
  c)	User Initiated Request – The author issues a command seeking a 
status back from the authoring tool.
  d)	Critical Workflow Milestone
   i)	On Open – The authoring tool conducts a check and reports the 
result of that check each time a document is opened.
   ii)	On Close - The authoring tool conducts a check and reports the 
result of that check each time a document is closed.
   iii)	On Save / Commit - The authoring tool conducts a check and 
reports the result of that check each time a document is saved or the 
author indicates the content is to be preserved in its current state.
   iv)	Author identified milestones - The authoring tool conducts a 
check and reports the result of that check for other workflow milestones 
which the author may designate.

2)	Offer Authors the option to create content in a structured 
environment. – Upon the creation of new content, the authoring tool 
should provide authors the opportunity to invoke mechanisms that enforce 
proper structure generation.
  a)	Template – Authors can select a template to follow
  b)	Wizard – Authors can have the authoring tool properly structure the 
content based upon responses to system generated queries
  c)	Real time validator (Forced Implementation: Interactive Rules 
Enforcement) – The system will not allow authors to create improperly 
structured content

3)	Offer Authors an opportunity to impose structure on unstructured content.
  a)	For applications that support explicit structural mechanisms offer 
authors the opportunity to employ those mechanisms – in the event of dtd 
or schema based structure link to a parser which validates content in 
accordance to the applicable DTD or schema.
  b)	For applications that do not support explicit structural 
mechanisms, offer authors to derive structure from format styles – 
provide authors a mechanism to map formatting conventions to structural 
elements

4)	Offer Authors an opportunity to verify document structure for 
completed content / work in progress.
  a)	When structure is present offer authors an opportunity to verify 
structure is correct
   i)	Include / exclude (Arrows and slide bars)
   ii)	Promote / demote (Push items up, slide items down)
   iii)	Hierarchical representation (Move labels up/down a structure tree)
   iv)	Parse content - Items are highlighted to indicate structural 
issues and author is given an opportunity to repair at each – (spell 
checker analogy)
  b)	When structure is missing:
   i)	For applications that support explicit structural mechanisms offer 
authors the opportunity to employ those mechanisms – in the event of dtd 
or schema based structure link to a parser which validates content in 
accordance to the applicable DTD or schema.
   ii)	For applications that do not support explicit structural 
mechanisms, offer authors to derive structure from format styles – 
provide authors a mechanism to map formatting conventions to structural 
elements

5)	Offer Authors an opportunity to validate structure
   i)	Parse Content - Items are highlighted to indicate structural 
issues and author is given an opportunity to repair at each – (spell 
checker analogy)
   ii)	Scheduled Interval – A flag or notice that appears to the author 
at an established interval of time.
   iii)	User Initiated Request – The author issues a command seeking a 
status back from the authoring tool.
   iv)	Critical Workflow Milestone
    (1)	On Open – The authoring tool conducts a check and reports the 
result of that check each time a document is opened.
    (2)	On Close - The authoring tool conducts a check and reports the 
result of that check each time a document is closed.
    (3)	On Save / Commit - The authoring tool conducts a check and 
reports the result of that check each time a document is saved or the 
author indicates the content is to be preserved in its current state.
    (4)	Author identified milestones - The authoring tool conducts a 
check and reports the result of that check for other workflow milestones 
which the author may designate.

6)	Allow Authors to work in an unstructured mode – The authoring tool 
should permit the others to generate and save content that is 
unstructured. The tool should alert authors to the fact that they are 
working in this unstructured mode.
  a)	Provide an alert to authors that they are working in an 
unstructured mode
  b)	Alert authors that content has not been structured.



-- 
Jan Richards, M.Sc.
User Interface Design Specialist
Adaptive Technology Resource Centre (ATRC), University of Toronto

   Email: jan.richards@utoronto.ca
   Web:   http://jan.atrc.utoronto.ca
   Phone: 416-946-7060
   Fax:   416-971-2896

Received on Monday, 30 August 2004 19:30:05 UTC