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Hewlett-Packard LaserJet 4 Travel Guide

Few computer problems cause business people more headaches than printers that stop producing the very hour that a big proposal needs to go out the door. The dealer's not open or has no answers. There's no 800 number to call. The manual is two inches thick and intimidating to use -- that's if you can find it. Hewlett-Packard was committed to ending this problem with the release of the HP LaserJet 4 printer. The company needed a way for customers around the world to get expert answers in minutes to a complete range of printer problems and questions, in keeping with a company-wide mission to transform lengthy print documents into more usable formats.

Sample Screens from the HP LaserJet 4 Travel Guide

HP LaserJet 4 Online Documentation

Fact Sheet

Created in Cognetics' Hyperties® for DOS and Windows
Installed footprint under 1.5 Megs
Translated into 15 languages

Cognetics worked with HP’s product development team to put all of the information on a diskette, so that customers could load the entire manual onto their computers and retrieve critical information quickly and easily. Using Cognetics’ Hyperties® text-linking software -- which permits, fast, easy management of vast amounts of data -- we provided users with the ability to navigate instantly to the troubleshooting tips they needed, from either a Main Menu or a visual Table of Contents. Our design allowed the HP LaserJet 4 Travel Guide to be translated into 15 languages quickly, easily, and with a standard format.The LaserJet 4 series proved one of the most successful printer introductions in computer history.

The project earned a Distinguished Award from the Society for Technical Communications, along with several other citations.

Interface Details

A Section Menu (screen) The team designed the navigation through the Travel Guide so that users need no special instructions. A main menu, a map, and a topic index provide several ways to find specific information. Highlighted hypertext links jump to additional information on items of interest.

A Sample Page (screen) The Travel Guide contains several paths for locating the user's desired information. Each section of the main menu is color-coded. This color coding is used throughout the Travel Guide to provide the reader with information about the section being read.

The Site Map (screen) In addition to the Main Menu, a Map is included. This screen is a visual table of contents, showing all of the sections on a single screen. A reader can reach any section by clicking on it.

Welcome Screen in French Hewlett-Packard's printers are distributed around the world. The Travel Guide was translated into fifteen languages, including French, Italian, German, Polish, Turkish and Finnish. An important design consideration was to minimize the cost of preparing the translations. It was also important to minimize the time needed to create each translation to meet the publication deadline.