Scenario-Focused Engineering is how we are approaching designing the next version of Office. The goal is to make the experience of using Office revolve around what you, our customers, do with the applications; to do our best to design through your eyes. This extends right down to writing Help. We plan to deliver scenario-based Help in the next version of Office.

In thinking about this, I wondered what kind of scenario writing most appeals to people using Publisher and Office generally. In the past we've tended to use scenarios in writing fairly technical IT deployment Help, such as these business intelligence scenarios, or these SharePoint 2003 scenarios, or roadmap articles like this one for SharePoint 2007 that wraps a set of articles into a coherent organization. For the Information Worker audience, we've produced some scenario-based videos, such as the Office Intervention series. And I've put together a roadmap style article on manipulating images in Publisher 2010, but we haven't had a consistent philosophy about scenarios and Help.

So, my question to you is, what do you want from scenario-based Help?

  • Do you want a story in which characters perform an end-to-end set of tasks?
  • Do you want a roadmap article to lay out a coherent set of articles to help you succeed in performing an end-to-end set of tasks?
  • Do you want the scenario to include video?
  • Do you want the scenario to include a training component?
  • What else might you want? Don't hold back, assume anything is possible!

Please sign in and leave your thoughts in the comments section. No, really, please do help me get a better handle on how to effectively write scenario-based Help.

"Help me, help you." Jerry McGuire.

-- Bob deLaubenfels