WORKAPPROACHCONTACT' Technology Made Friendly '
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| Interactive handbook | ||||||
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Introduction This interactive handbook was offered in the hopes that the citizens of New York State would never again be under attack. However, if they ever were, The Home Care Association of NY State wanted its providers to be as prepared as possible to play an active part in protecting and caring for the public. |
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The Client The Home Care Association of New York represents more than 500 home health care providers and individuals in New York State. Among the many benefits HCA offers its member is to keep them in touch with significant changes in the home health care field. September 2001 was the occasion for such a change - there were over 2,000 home health care recipients around the World Trade Center on 9/11/2001 - and although home care and hospice personnel had visited each of these 2000 individuals by the end of the week, the events of that day underscored the need for a formal home health care disaster plan able to respond to large-scale attacks and biological, chemical and nuclear emergencies. In December 2002 HCA was awarded a grant by the New York State Department of Health to create an emergency preparedness manual specifically aimed at workers in the home health care industry. A comprehensive text-based training manual was created, rich in detail and information. HCA was concerned that, despite the richness of the material, the training manual in its current form was too dense and challenging for their membership. HCA was referred to Cogent as a company that combined technical know-how with the ability to manage and understand sophisticated content. Cogent set up a meeting with HCA to start the work process. |
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The Work Process Although Cogent's work process varies in depth and complexity from job to job, the steps in the process (with the possible exception of maintenance) remain constant. They consist of:
This case study relates the development of the 'Homecare Emergency Preparedness Handbook' to Cogent's Work Process. |
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| Step 1. Knowledge Transfer Getting a clear understanding of a client's needs within the context of their operating environment and long-term strategy is critical to a project's success. This knowledge transfer process provides the foundation for a design that goes beyond the client's short-term needs to provide flexibility for future growth and change. Knowledge transfer depends less on technological expertise than it does on the ability to listen and communicate. Cogent uses this dialogue to help build a relationship with the client based on mutual respect and collaboration. Collaborative working relationships not only make work more creative, they generally also lead to a better end product by encouraging the contribution of all concerned. Cogent's initial discussions with the client revealed a number of key facts:
Based on these conversations with the client a design outline began to emerge. | ||||||
| Step 2. Design Cogent suggested a solution that would convert the manual to an electronic handbook while preserving the integrity of the original. It would be edited to make it more interesting and compelling and re-packaged with graphic elements. Interactive features such as web links and audio and video testimonials would be incorporated. Finally, making it non-linear and menu-driven would add value to the presentation - enabling users to jump directly to their specific areas of interest. To meet the requirements of web accessibility without web dependency Cogent proposed a hybrid CD-ROM solution. The handbook would play on the user's desktop yet have the potential to jump out to useful web sites and online resources if Internet connectivity was available. The discussion now turned to selecting the authoring software that would best serve the clients needs. Although a number of excellent applications came to mind, including Macromedia Director, Authorware and Flash, it was decided to go with an unconventional choice and author the handbook in Adobe Acrobat. Most people who use Adobe Acrobat know of it as free software that lets them view and print formatted documents on a variety of devices and operating systems. What most people don't know is that Acrobat also provides a powerful interactive authoring environment. It was Acrobat's ability to incorporate graphics, audio, video and even web links into a presentation while allowing the user to print great looking formatted text that made it the obvious choice to further the client's needs. To facilitate the client's involvement in the collaborative process, Cogent created a template page for the redesigned handbook. The template included local and global navigation areas, text styles, icons, and placeholders for a vertical banner and page numbers. (See Illustration I).
Cogent's pragmatic approach to technology is well illustrated by this project - by creating the template in the world's most generic application -Microsoft Word - the client's non-technical staff would be able to perform the text-editing portion of the conversion process themselves. The client thus retained complete control over the content as well as saving a considerable amount of money. Once the structure of the template had been defined Cogent's in-house team developed the generic elements for the navigation icons and controls. A graphic placeholder was created for the vertical banner and the template was delivered to the client so that they could start editing the manual and formatting it to the template. Cogent then invited Berkshire Marketing Group, a graphic design company with whom Cogent has a long-established working relationship, to develop a design for the CD-ROM (See Illustration II). The same design elements would be branded onto the disc cover, the application launcher and the vertical banner.
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| Step 3. Development Video and Audio Production: While the client was editing and reformatting the original document, Cogent made use of their in-house media capabilities and began taping audio and video sequences, showcasing experts from various sectors of the home health care field. In order to expedite the production process and cut down on travel time, a number of audio interviews were conducted by phone, using a special telephone microphone adapter. Once edited and down-sampled, these sequences would be sprinkled throughout the handbook to make it more dynamic and compelling. The collaborative relationship continued with the client coordinating these production sessions. Proofing and Quality Control: After the client had edited the document, both Cogent and the client put it through an extensive quality control process. The materials were proofed and checked for formatting consistency and accuracy. Links to appropriate URLs were established and external resource documents were converted to PDF and linked to relevant pages in the Handbook. The quality control process was especially critical because, although editorial changes could be performed relatively easily in MS Word, it would be considerably more difficult to make anything other than minor editorial changes once the document was converted to PDF - major changes would run the risk of throwing off the document's formatting and pagination. PDF conversion: The completed document was then exported to Acrobat Distiller and an identical PDF version of the original was created to provide the foundation for the remainder of the development process. The task ahead was to build interactivity into the static document, embed and activate the audio and video elements and incorporate links to resources such as URLs and external forms and documents. It was also decided to create additional internal links within the training materials in order to encourage users to make their own unique path through the document. The development process required a combination of intermediate programming skills and painstaking attention to detail, as hundreds of buttons, links and embedded media were added to the document. Creating a Launcher: While the Acrobat programming was being completed The application launcher (See Illustration III) was also being developed.
The main function of the launcher would be to alert the user as to the status of required installed components. In order to access the manual the user would need to have two applications installed:
Checking a user's system requires code that is not supported by Acrobat's programming environment, so the decision was made to program the launcher in Macromedia Authorware. A routine was written, enabling the CD-ROM to auto-play when a user inserted it into their computer. The Authorware launcher then ran the background tests mentioned above. Once these were completed the user clicked a button to open the Handbook and control was handed over to Adobe Acrobat - a seamless process from the user's point of view. | ||||||
| Step 4. Testing and Debugging The most exciting part of any development process comes when the efforts of the different development groups are integrated into the final product. An alpha CD-Rom version was created containing the launcher, installers, completed Handbook and folders containing linked media and resources. After Cogent's testing and debugging process was complete a Beta disc was burned and handed to the client for review. The client's review revealed some minor typos. These were corrected using Acrobat's Touch-up Text Tool and a master disc was burned and sent out for replication and packaging. | ||||||
| Step 5. Project Launch The 1000 CD-roms ordered by the client arrived on time and on budget and they were mailed out to the client's membership. | ||||||
| Step 6. Knowledge Transfer Although the CD-Rom Handbook was easy to use and relatively self-explanatory, the client scheduled three web-cast training sessions to both promote the importance of Emergency Preparedness and demonstrate the capabilities of Adobe Acrobat to their members. Cogent provided technical support for this initiative, hosted the event at their Troy office and kicked off the web cast by presenting a 15 minute tutorial introducing participants to the Adobe Reader environment and navigation structure. The thrust of this tutorial was to promote the resources embedded in the re-purposed Handbook - most Adobe documents are text only - so it was important to alert the audience to the resources and rich media that lay just beneath the surface of the document and to show them how to make use of them. | ||||||
| Step 7. Maintenance Whereas a website can be seen as a constant work in progress a CD-Rom is more like a snapshot in time. Once information is burned to a disc it cannot be updated without going back to the source files, modifying them and then burning a new disc. The usual question facing a client: whether to maintain a site oneself or whether to have it professionally maintained by the developer, therefore did not apply to this project. | ||||||
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Conclusion The Handbook was enthusiastically received by the client's membership which liked the combination of dynamic and static content. The client was delighted with the reception of the interactive handbook as was the New York State Department of Health whose grant helped fund the project. |
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