Hyperviews: Fall 1998 Letter from the Editor

	LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Editor's Note Introduction	Welcome to the Fall 1998 issue of Hyperviews:Online. This issue is really the result of a lot of hard work by our Assistant Editor Karen Mobley. After the last issue Karen really took a lot of initiative and combined a class project and Hyperviews:Online to make some welcomed changes to the site. Yes... change is a good thing folks... and I think this is immediately evident as you stroll around our new digs. Karen explains the process she guided Hyperviews:Online through to make these changes and I'm very grateful for her extraordinary efforts. Also, I wanted to say a word about the site's availability over the past few months. As many of you may know, STC.org hasn't been the most reliable of servers over the past year. The STC is committed to upgrading the availability of the server, and all of the sites on it. However, we felt that for this issue we needed to move to a more stable place, and the folks at NC State were very generous in their offer to help us out. We know that this plays some havoc with bookmarks and our identity, but we feel that ultimately this site is not worth much if you can't get to it. We appreciate your patience on this, and we welcome any comments or questions you have. Bill Bledsoe, Editor St. Louis chapter
End / Beginning	This issue of Hyperviews:Online is the final issue of 1998 and the end of our first year on the web. We've learned quite a bit. One thing we've learned is that everything changes on the Web! As Assistant Editor, I was given the assignment of designing and implementing a low resolution, small monitor-friendly web site, preferably non-framed and fast loading. I'd like to share with you how this issue's site design emerged.
Structure and Usability	Before I drew a single diagram or picture, I asked a group of our readers what kind of structure they thought the Hyperviews:Online web site should have. Using cards, each with a different hyperlink or web page classification on it, the test participants laid the cards on the table... in the structure that made sense to them. No one agreed 100%, but it became obvious that readers wanted to see the issue's contents quickly to decide what to read. If they were at the site for reference information, they wanted multiple ways to access and find that information. Ultimately, I understood from our readers that the Hyperviews:Online site is really two web sites: the online newsletter and the web resource repository for the Online Information SIG. Therefore, the site design is single-layered for the newsletter articles and multi-entry and multi-layered for the Online Information resources. Some of our entry points into the Online Information resources are not yet implemented, such as our site map and site search. Our site index is nearing completion and we'll refresh that page in the coming months. In addition to our new structure, Hyperviews:Online got a new look. I was fortunate to work with Tracey Adams, an online graphics designer. From my sketches, she interpreted the new Hyperviews:Online back splash and column icons. Tracey and I hope the icons make it easier to use the site as well as more enjoyable.
Test and Refine	A draft of the site with the new structure, graphics, and home page was shown to the editorial staff, a subset of readers, and Dr. Brad Mehlenbacher of North Carolina State University. We viewed the site in a number of variations including: 15, 17, and 21 inch monitors 600 x 480, 800 x 600, 1024 x 768, and 1280 x 1024 resolutions Netscape® Navigator® 3.01, Netscape Communicator 4.05, Microsoft® Internet Explorer 3.02, and Opera 3.21 web browsers Windows® 95, Windows NT®, Mac® OS 8.1, and OS/2TM operating systems. The resulting comments and suggestions went into a second draft of the site which was tested again. The second test confirmed the strength of the new design as well as uncovered some problems with the layout of some of the pre-existing pages meant for the resource repository. After the final corrections, the editorial staff cut the Fall issue's content into the new design. Please continue sending your comments and suggestions to us. Better yet, join us in the fun!
Thanks!	I'd like to extend a personal thanks to Scott and Bill for their support and encouragement of this effort. Thanks also to all my test participants, Dr. Brad Mehlenbacher, my classmates, friends, and family: especially Melissa Powell, Gina Elmore, and Greg Mobley. Sincerely, Karen Mobley, Assistant Editor Carolina chapter
	Karen Mobley is a programmer and technical communicator specializing in online help and web design with IBM Personal Systems Group in Research Triangle Park, NC. She has a B.S. in computer science from Clemson University and is pursuing a master’s degree in technical communication at North Carolina State University. She is really glad this assignment is complete!
Trademarks	Mac is a registered trademark of Apple Corporation. Microsoft, Windows and Windows NT are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Netscape and Netscape Navigator are registered trademarks of Netscape Communications Corporation in the United States and other countries. OS/2 is a trademark of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States, or other countries, or both