From presentation to instructional program
The Dutch province (county council) of Noord-Holland uses a form that is filled in over 15.000 times a year. Every motion that is to be passed through the council needs to be accompanied by this form, stating purpose, explanation, routing, etc. for the proposal. Naturally, the council wants to make sure this important form is filled in properly, as mistakes would severely hamper the proceedings.
The council requested an instructional presentation to be made. After consulting with us, we instead proposed creating a whole instructional program. The nature of the form was such that the filling in depended on what level the proposal was made. This created the need for branching instructions which was difficult to get across in a presentation that is based on a single story line. Also, an instructional program would allow for an easier roll-out across the organisation and staff would be able to get instruction on one or several specific topics, when and where they needed it.
It was decided that Delphi was the best platform, allowing for quick development and easy incorporation of all the graphics needed. Also it was easy to create a branching program based on the user’s input.
We hired a cartoonist to give personality and a face to the province’s first governor, back in the 19th century (baron Van Tuyll van Serooskerken van Vleuten, no less!). This character livened up the program and made it easier to memorise where one was in a certain branch.
In all, a full program was delivered that gave information about the form’s different compartments, gave extensive background documentation about the procedures, a comprehensive help file, whilst always taking care a user could keep track of where in a branch he or she was. The actual text used was brought outside the program so the province was able to make changes as they were needed.