Usability tests indicate that readers get lost after scrolling through more than three windowfuls of text without headings. Your book will be easier to read and navigate online if you organize text in chunks: brief, to-the-point, stand-alone sections. Think of the topics in your book as index cards scattered on a desk. Readers may jump to a topic without seeing what comes before or after it. Make each section answer one question, then provide links to supplemental information.

At the beginning of each chapter, provide a bulleted list of all first-level headings in that chapter. Usability tests indicate that, when a chapter begins with a bulleted list, users expect the items in the list to be links. Use the FrameMaker cross-reference tool to create the list, so that each section heading will be a link in the online version of the book.

Of course, in some books it may not make sense to begin each chapter with a linked summary. As always, use your best judgment of what is appropriate for your book.

A good online heading tells the reader what is contained in the section without relying on information contained in the parent heading. For instance, if a section called “Comparing Files” contains a subsection that describes how to use diff, name the subsection, “Using diff to Compare Files,” rather than simply “diff.”

Since your readers may enter the section from a different chapter or even a different book, using “diff” by itself as a subsection title doesn't provide enough context information; it requires the reader to skim the previous section and to know what the diff utility is used for.

To make it easy for a reader to stay “located” in your book, stick to one topic per section. If the subject changes, write a new heading. Don't worry about having too many headings; a large number of headings will make your document more usable and won't overload it.

Online readers leap quickly from section to section. While looking for information on a particular topic, a reader might consecutively read eight different paragraphs from various chapters in your book, and others from another book as well. So, for example, if you call something a “short name” in one chapter and a “short title” in another, and another writer calls it a “shorty” in a different book, readers may get confused. This kind of inconsistency is inadvisable, in a hard copy book, but it's deadly online. If you change a term partway through the writing process, use FrameMaker's Edit > Find/Change tool to make sure you change all the occurrences of the old term.

Online readers approach information from many different directions. Don't assume that a reader knows or has read information that isn't currently on the screen. Avoid wording that refers to location within a book, unless you also create a link to that information. Table 1-1 gives examples of how to avoid print-oriented wording.

Include enough information in a cross-reference so a reader can decide whether to follow it. For example, “See the Origin200 Owner's Guide” doesn't tell the reader what information you are referencing. A better reference might be, “See the section called `Setting Up Your System' in the Origin200 Owner's Guide for more information about plugging in the power cord.” This reference tells the readers exactly what information they can expect to find at the other end of the link.

Avoid including the same information in multiple places in your book. Instead, put it in the most important place, then create cross-references to it as necessary. This way, readers who need the information can just click the cross-reference, while readers who don't need it won't need to scroll through it. And when you need to update the information on that topic, you won't have to remember to update it in more than one place.