Cyberscribe was called in to develop user support materials for Inforce AB, an arrest and booking application, while it was still being developed. The user interface was still under construction for several areas of the software so much of the documentation had to be created from use cases and technical specifications, with occasional speculation as to how a particular feature would work.

Because target markets included law enforcement agencies throughout North America and the United Kingdom, the product would need three slightly different versions of the same base content with distinct terms, spelling and legal references. These variations would not only need to be captured in the documentation but on the graphic user interface as well.

Working closely with Imagis business analysts, testers and programmers, Cyberscribe used Adobe FrameMaker to create a single-source manual with variations in spelling, terminology and references to specific legislative elements, such as the Young Offenders’ Act of Canada. Manually editing the XML code to reflect variations in English spelling, Cyberscribe painstakingly proofed over 15,000 lines of code to ensure that documentation would correspond perfectly to screen titles, field labels and error messages. When Cyberscribe discovered that drop-down text displayed in the software interface contained inconsistency and spelling errors, our consultant immediately undertook to track down the data’s point of origin, and in keeping with content management best practices, correct it once and for all at the source. The search ended with the Communications Department at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), who were not only grateful for the offer, but subsequently invited Imagis to join a select group of industry advisors to help establish global data standards.