Book Collaboration Workflow

There are two mechanisms for staging workflow in web-based applications.

The first is by designing the function directly into a template or web page layout, with tabs and other work affordances in the sidebar. This layout provides for richer association of tools with each panel of directed activities. This is the approach taken by PressBooks, for example. The downside is that the layout does not scale downwards responsively without massive attention to floating the controls to the top or bottom of the working panel as the screen size shrinks. The key characteristic of this mode is that each tab choice opens a new web page, while retaining the same look and feel in the control area.

The second approach is to embed the sequencing functionality within a single topic. This was the approach of the "Business Canvas" demo application. It has the nice feature of retaining page context at all times even as a user is tabbing into different parts of the interface, but has the downside that all logic generally must be local to this one web page, which limits the potential sophistication of usage. The key characteristic of this mode is that each tab choice brings the new content into view in the same position of the original page.

A variation on this approach is to sequence the tasks within divisions going down the page and let the user simply scroll or hyperlink to the one of interest. If the navigation links were given toggle properties, the behavior becomes more like the tabbed approach. Accordian-style navigation tools follow this pattern.