Content Stratification

Posted on January 24, 2012 by Bill

Ever-Broadening Content Horizons
In her recent blog post ‘Content strategy – a revolution?’, Betty Tew is just touching the tip of the iceberg (or, whatever the equivalent in a cloud metaphor would be). I like how she refers to “the ever-broadening field of business and technical communications” because as I see it, tech writing (or technical communication) is becoming subsumed under larger circles in the Venn diagram of professional activities. It is still there and still important, but not the overarching discipline that it used to be. Silos that previously separated the specialties are going away. It’s time for us all to play together in the same space. Tech comm is playing a smaller part because more people want more types of information in more channels quicker. And no one has time to read it all, so we are working to automate part of the process and filter a lot of the content and design the interface so users don’t need so much explanation. So I think content strategy is part of the process of dealing with the disruption and change in our industry.

Challenge of Content Strategy
Last weekend I listened to Sarah O’Keefe’s webcast ‘Content strategy in technical communication’. When she got to the part where she asked the audience “What are YOUR challenges?”, I knew immediately – but I don’t think it is on her list of frequent responses. My biggest strategy challenge is not what amount or type of content to post or what format to deliver content, but how to build community, how to foster collaboration?
Content isn’t just something I create and send out to a willing audience. My strategy is to engage in conversation so content needs to flow both ways. Where in content strategy is any of that handled? Content strategy seems to focus on the content and the business value of content. But my customers do not need content (at least not content alone).
They need conversation. And how do you manage content once it is out there in social media, where others send it out, mix it up, create their own? When the conversation is happening and others join in, how does “content strategy” help?

How Separate?
I appreciate that Sarah wants so separate tech comm as a separate body of content with a different purpose from marketing communications and other more persuasive communications. It all might be blurring together and it might not be as useful as it was in the past to consider it as a separate type of content. Is segmenting persuasive comm. from tech. transfer useful? Let’s just say I’m not convinced yet. And talking about separate (but equal), can you really create a strategy for content that is separate from the rest of the company’s strategy? Is it really a separate process, a separate strategy? I’m wondering why we have content strategy as separate from sales strategy, service strategy, market strategy, product strategy, customer management strategy, etc.? Can anyone answer these questions for me?

Posted in Content Development, content lifecycle, content management, Process, Profession, Social Networking | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Designing is Getting Touchy

Posted on January 16, 2012 by Bill

Introduction
Last Thursday, I joined other local TriUPA members and listened to Josh Clark‘s webinar titled “Buttons are a Hack”. He ostensibly was trying to get us to do more with gestures and less with traditional windows controls, menus, and buttons in designing the interfaces for mobile devices. It’s not just the smaller size of screen that is motivating the change:
he really wants us to give users more direct interaction with the content. His webinar got a bunch of us thinking about trends in user interface design.

Call for Gestures
As an old guy who was just getting used to the existing computer interface conventions that were based on metaphors – folder, desktops, etc. – I found it refreshing but a bit scary. But, after all, a tablet (or other mobile device with appreciable screen estate) is somewhere between paper and computer, between phone and game console. With a touch screen, it deserves some rethinking of the user interaction.

So we are being advised to throw away all the silly stuff that we accept as convention; all those desktop metaphor controls are indirect and they are separating the user from the content and from their primitive bodily movements that have developed over thousands of years of evolution. Or at least, that’s what I heard.

Josh offered some pithy axioms:

  • “Gestures are the keyboard shortcut of touch.”
  • “Content is the control.”
  • “Information is the interface.”

This sounds like a good starting point. Well, okay, I can see the direction this is going for mobile devices and touch screens. More thought is going to have to go into the design. He referred to LukeW.com for a reference guide of touch gestures.

Which gestures could be considered general or universal? You have swipe, tap, tap & hold, pinch, spread, etc. We could consider several finger touch (as some games do) but we may run into accessibility issues. We need to reduce the impact of Fitt’s law where at all possible. But we need to adopt some conventions so users don’t have to relearn the interface for each application.

Just Gestures
After some discussion on how we could discover gestures and how a user could learn gestures, he made the point that users will need to learn as they go. So as designers, we will have to introduce learning to the user without being in their face. He suggested we all look at how a player learns video games as a great example. With a more interactive interface we should follow these three ideas from gaming:

  • Coaching – prompt the user if they look lost
  • Leveling Up – introduce easy stuff at early levels and save complicated stuff for the expert
  • Power Ups – provide shortcuts for expert users and ways to advance

I would like to add two additional ideas from gaming that came from a discussion with a colleague:

  • managing inventory – let the interface save and organize your information
  • key or reference – transitioning between rooms or levels there is always some map of terrain or point of reference, some metadata to help

Coaching Social
I would go further with the gamification insights, but I wonder if they exhaust the possibilities for learning. Most of the examples he gave were for games where I play against the computer or against other players but by myself. This still doesn’t handle collaboration and the social aspects that are needed for the growing amount of collaborative work. It doesn’t encourage or train you to work with others, even if it does provide incentives. As a rudimentary example, think of the skills you needed to drive on the highway. Part of the skill is controlling the car, but part of the skill is getting the right space between your car and the other cars; yielding or taking the right of way; keeping up with traffic. This is more than just learning the road signs and how to drive your car by yourself. It means learning how to work with others so that everyone arrives safely. Let’s see if the user interface can help with that as well.

For more, on Twitter, search #uievs (for UIE virtual seminars).

Posted in Design, Future, Profession, Professional Association, User Experience, Web Applications | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Tintinnabulation

Posted on December 31, 2011 by Bill

This week I went to see the movie ‘Adventures of Tintin’ with my now grown sons. When they were boys, I introduced them to the Tintin books, mostly the English ones. So it was partly nostalgic to see it with them. My recommendation is that the 3-D version is not worth the extra price; just see it in ordinary 2-D. And don’t expect a huge Steven Spielberg effects extravaganza or epic war scenes of other Peter Jackson movies, though both guys have done their parts here – just expect the fun of seeing Tintin. If you are a Tintin fan, you won’t be disappointed with the creation of hilarious if improbable action that typifies the comic book. The mixture of plausible slapstick and subtle humor were faithfully included and make for an enjoyable hour and 45 minute experience. There is a great setup of action and there are easy transitions between settings (ships at sea to airplanes to crossing a desert) which you can take for granted in the books but are hard to do in a movie without causing disruption.

Having seen several more sophisticated action movies lately, one can be jaded – expecting more mature handling of different social and cultural issues- but these are based on comic books of a previous generation and the movie makers were loyal to the spirit of those comic books. Unlike the latest rash of comic book movies based on superheros, there is no embellishment of characters, no explaining formative childhood experiences, just plain Tintin. I’m guessing that if you remember the books, you might even know some of the plot line or be able to guess what happens next in an action sequence, but enjoy it regardless. There isn’t really any character development per se – some action movies based on comic books do a good job of developing characters and making the movies deeper than their original comics, but you won’t find that here. There are the bumbling detective Thompson twins; there is the silly white dog (Snowy or Milou, depending on whether you read the American or European versions) who sometimes is as smart as any human; there is Captain Haddock who gets to say “Billions of bilious blue blistering barnacles!” and is always looking for the next bottle of whiskey. There are no strong female roles, there is no interaction with the people in what looks like Muslim Africa, and there is only a nod to the Captain’s alcohol problem, where in the end he throws the whiskey bottles instead of drinking them, as if he has decided to stay sober, but then there is no such sensitivities in the comic books either, so I can’t criticize the movie for what it lacks. Maybe the fact that this movie is showing all around the world and in many languages offers its own redemption in this regard.

Overall, the three of us rated the movie between 8.5 to 9.0 on a scale of 1 to 10. I hope you enjoy. Be sure to see the trailer at IMDB. If you want to see other reviews, try Grace Randolph’s review or Jeremy Jahn’s review. Now I’m more hopeful that someone will do a movie version of Asterix & Obelix. That would really ring some bells. And I’ll have a great excuse to get my sons back together for a trip down memory lane while enjoying some fun entertainment.

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Web Analysis Project

Posted on December 25, 2011 by Bill

There are many ways to interpret a web site. Through user interfaces, design patterns, business achievements, and social acceptance, one can obtain a general and sufficient understanding of a web site and what it has to offer. I am developing a project that may help us better comprehend and express the ability of a web site to achieve value for its users. As a starting point, I will compare two distinctly different web sites that have some overlap in functional capability. The sites will be compared on several dimensions, using different types of metrics and forms of description. By actively using both sites with experience I have gained through working with them, my research stays grounded in reality. Two sites that I am currently working with are Amazon and BookMooch. I use both to exchange books with others – selling books on Amazon, and exchanging books for free on BookMooch. My work will be posted on KeyContent.org. An outline and introduction will be coming soon. Stay tuned to this blog for regular updates and insights.

Posted in Design, Information Architecture, Interface, Process, User Experience, User Scenarios, Web Applications | Tagged , | Comments Off

The Social Cut

Posted on December 12, 2011 by Bill

There is an intriguing movie, The Final Cut, in which implantable chips record each person’s every sight, giving a veritable recorded history of that person’s life. (See Amazon or IMDB.) Of course not everyone has the chip which makes for some interesting plot – Robin William’s character, a cutter, is responsible for reviewing a person’s chip after that person’s death and editing it down to a meaningful final review to be shown at the funeral. While the technology of such an implantable chip is not too far fetched, what is done with the recorded information could make for any number of suspenseful plots. The technology for putting so much information about a person’s life online seems possible now; in terms of audiovisual recording, people have claimed to be putting longer and longer recordings of their day online already. The interesting thing is how the editing is done and by whom. That’s what I think warrants some discussion.

In The Final Cut, it is the experienced cutter, a life editor, who determines what is representative, meaningful, and worth viewing at the funeral. But what if, as long as all the recording is online, the parts of that’s person’s life is rated by the viewers – those who watch the life’s recording, with family and relatives perhaps getting a higher weighted rating? What if what is shown at the funeral is determined by the social community based on the ratings of the parts of the recording? And what if, instead of a single viewing during the funeral, the edited final cut is available online as well, as an abstract is to an entire longer thesis? Once the information, the life’s recording, is online, what need is there for a single cutter? Besides an automated final cut based on social ratings, there could be any number of artistic or cultural cutters who could create different cuts for different audiences. The possibilities are as limitless as the Internet.

Posted in Philosphy, Review, Social Networking | Comments Off

Succint On-Site Online Survey

Posted on November 8, 2011 by Bill

Recently Brian Calder asked me to participate in the beta program of a really cool mini-survey tool called Xurtle.

http://blog.xurtle.com/beta-program

See the survey on the right side of this blog – it’s a survey I created using Xurtle.

This is a tool that, as he says, “can satisfy or complement your online customer feedback collection needs” but I see it more as a Web site visitor engagement tool. I was able to create a new survey and post it into my blog within a matter of minutes. I took my time because, well, for two reasons – I wanted to play with the wording and size of the questions, and because I was recording my experience so I could give Brian some constructive feedback. But I could have set it up and published it very quickly and effortlessly.

I’m completely sold on the idea of an online survey that resides on my Web site. Other survey tools take the user away from the site to their survey site; other tools are too complicated and have me doing programming. With Xurtle, I have a survey that fits in the widgets column of my blog and all that is necessary is a URL (which Xurtle generates) that points to the Xurtle site where the engine resides. But the survey is on my site. I’ll have more to report on this, as I create a more complete review of the product soon. But I wanted to let everyone know, I am pleased with the product and was able to include some feedback for Brian including some cool enhancement ideas.

Posted in Blog, Design, Information Architecture, Online Survey, Tools, Web Applications | Tagged | 1 Comment

Authenticate This

Posted on October 31, 2011 by Bill

It is becoming apparent what the next step for smart phone development will be. And I don’t mean making them smaller; they’re small enough. They now have a GPS (for locating), a camera (for taking pictures), a mirror (if you have the right app), and of course a phone, which can be used for talking or texting. They will soon have voice activation for many tasks. And of course they have Internet access; it’s not so much that they are smart as it is that they are connected. But that’s not what I’m talking about either. I’m looking at the next step in their ability to handle transactions, not just financial ones either, because right now we can purchase things from the Internet or from a vending machine using our phones. The next step goes beyond just replacing the money and credit cards in our wallets that give us the ability to purchase things. They will do more than just perform financial transactions. With the added functionality of authentication they will replace not only the money and cards in our wallets but also our licenses and keys in our pockets and purses. With the intelligence of authentication, smart phones will not only be connected but also have a level of agency for us. They will allow us to handle other transactions, like transferring medical records or gaining membership-only access to areas or information, that require proof of our identity, namely authentication. We are only at the beginning of what we will be able to do electronically and easily as long as we are connected. We may have to come up with a better name for them than just ‘smart phones’.

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Profession Realignment

Posted on October 4, 2011 by Bill

Today I’m comparing the list of program tracks at the STC Summit for 2011 and 2012. Notice the difference in names of tracks. Maybe that’s telling us something about the profession.

Here are last year’s tracks (“Before”):

  • Usability and Accessibility
  • Managing People, Projects, and Business
  • Writing and Editing
  • Design, Architecture, and Publishing
  • Communication and Interpersonal Skills
  • Education and Training
  • Professional Development
  • Web Technologies

Here are this year tracks (“After”):

  • User Experience & Accessibility
  • People, Project, and Business Management
  • Content Development
  • Content Strategy and Design
  • Content Delivery
  • Education and Training
  • Professional Development
  • Web Design and Development
  • Visual Design
  • Social Media

Here’s what I surmise from these track name changes:

  1. “Usability” has expanded into “User Experience”.
  2. “Writing and Editing” is gone as a moniker for what we do – now it is “Content Development”.
  3. “Design, Arch & Publ.” is now broken up into “Content Strategy & Design” and “Content Delivery” and “Web Design & Development”.
  4. “Comm & Interpersonal Skills” is gone or else subsumed under “Managing”.
  5. “Web Technologies” (a kind of vague catch-all) has been replaced with “Web Design & Development”, “Visual Design”, and “Social Media”.
    Or one could say we’re adding “Visual Design”, and “Social Media” (finally).
  6. The ones that had little or no change (“Some things never change.”) are:
    • People, Project & Business Management
    • Education & Training
    • Professional Development
  7. Looks like “Content” is the new buzz word – no mention of “Information” or “Architecture”. Looks like a conscious decision. Which is interesting because there is an “Information Design & Architecture” SIG in STC.
  8. I wonder where ‘editing’ and ‘indexing’ and ‘mar comm’ and ‘process docs’ fits in this scheme?

It would be interesting to look at the SIGs and see how they line up with these tracks; so does biotech writing just fit under “Content Development”?

Besides the tracks there are also what are called additional Institutes (for advanced content) – more forward looking or hip topics that haven’t been around long enough to have a bunch of speakers but which conference attendees might find interesting. In 2011, the Institutes were:

  • Content Strategy
  • Business Strategy
  • User Experience
  • Social Media

I can’t find a list of previous STC Summits on the STC website. If anyone knows the names of the program tracks for previous years (well, not too far back – let’s not get carried away), let me know. Leave a comment below or leave me a tweet (@BillAlbing).

Alyssa Fox sent me these other previous year track lists.

In 2006, they were called stems, and were:

  • Management
  • Professional Development/STC-Related Sessions
  • Theory, Research, Education, and Training
  • Tools and Technology
  • Usability and Information Design
  • Writing and Editing

In 2008 and 2009, the track names were:

  • Applying Research and Theory to Practice
  • Developing and Delivering Content
  • Designing and Assessing the User Experience
  • Developing Your Skills and Promoting Your Profession
  • Managing People, Projects, and Business
  • Producing and Publishing Information

So, some additional thoughts:

  1. Looks like the change from “Writing and Editing” to “Developing Content” may be cyclical. It has happened more than once.
  2. We have dropped the words “Theory” and “Research” from track names.
  3. “Producing and Publishing Information” has morphed into “Content Delivery”, “Web Design” and “Social Media”, I think.
  4. “Tools and Technology” has gone as an item to focus on by itself. We are not just users of tools, I guess. But part of me wonders if we shouldn’t retain something that is just about the “technical” in technical writing.
Posted in Conferences, Criticism, Profession, Professional Association | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Gauging Social Media

Posted on September 21, 2011 by Bill

I know that social media is sort of a soft topic for some companies – especially if you are not dealing with the general public. But with the rise of mobile devices and expectations that information should be available with as much immediacy as possible, I would guess that social media will increase in use, even if the “social” aspect is not relevant.

Yesterday I attended the local Raleigh Salesforce User Group meeting and got a taste of how the service (or support) arm of a company can deal with the influx of customer feedback from social media as a communications channel and the growth of brand perception in general through social media. So just as telephones and emails need to be monitored and responded to, so chat sessions, Google searches, blog posts, and Twitter feeds need to be analyzed and responded to, albeit in a different and appropriate way. Lee Pisacano, from Salesforce, gave us a good introduction to all this and explained that Salesforce is expanding their offerings to give us the tools to handle this.

Robin Callendar, also of Salesforce, spoke about responding to social media input (from customers and the public) as part of service and support with some pretty sophisticated tools that are now available since Salesforce bought out Radian6. He showed how their latest module gives you the ability to analyze social media in ways that I did not realize were possible. I learned that in an online chat session, the support person can see what you are typing as you are typing it – almost spooky because it’s not clear from the UI that it is presenting it to the listener at the other end. And I learned that you can do some pretty cool analytics on what’s out there in Twitter and blogs, rating the priority of the feedback on how many people online are being influenced by that feedback.

Bryan White of RegEd shared Pfizer’s Social Media Response Flowchart (originally developed by the U.S. Air Force). There was a lot of interest in that; I guess we’re all trying to figure out how to deal with social media.

Tricia (I think it was) shared how cool it was to be at Dreamforce – they had so many attendees that they had to close off some city blocks in San Francisco. I also chatted with Peter Stocks who works for Fairsail, a company that makes a human resource and recruitment software package, about these trends in software – how stuff is moving to the cloud and Salesforce seems to be doing things correctly. Salesforce does cool software deployment and adds modules of functionality as needed. Their screens seem to have a lot going on, but I’m not sure I’d say it’s cluttered. Busy, yes. I wonder if they’ll work on keeping the interface clean and simple and hide more stuff as the user base grows and functionality grows.

There were just shy of 40 people attending. Thanks to Lenovo for hosting the meeting. The catering of Mediterranean food for our lunch was excellent – I’m going to have to get the name of that caterer. (Sorry, no photos this time. The room was a bit dark and I’m not the best with a camera.)

Posted in cloud solutions, Social Networking, User Experience, user group meetings | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Streaming Video as Instant Broadcast

Posted on September 11, 2011 by Bill

Only recently have I been investigating the technology of live streaming video. It is a fabulous and instantaneous way to get information out to others – streaming what is on your computer screen to the Internet for others to watch continuously in their Web browsers remotely as if it is, to use an analogy from a previous generation of technology, a TV channel. This is somewhat like Web conferencing but is more like broadcasting, as it assumes one person is producing it and many people may be watching it. If you need it, here is some background on live streaming.

This seems to be a great technology for demonstrating a software product or teaching others how to use a software product. Since it can show your entire screen, you could have any number of windows open for explanation. There are ways to record a session and keep it posted for others to watch at a time of their choosing, but my discussion here is simply about live broadcasting. It is not completely like traditional broadcasting in that you can chat online with others viewers during the broadcast.

The first step is to make sure you have required hardware and software to run a broadcast, including a computer, a microphone and a multimedia broadcasting application. For example, I’m using a conventional Windows machine – not too fancy with processor speed or memory, just run of the mill – and a mid-level quality microphone (a Logitech headset with microphone), nothing too elaborate. For software, I downloaded and installed the latest from XSplit.

The broadcast software requires some configuration and there are YouTube videos and other web sites that explain how to set it up. Basically, you pick the microphone, the area of the screen (or all of it), and the channel to which to upload the stream.

XSplit Screen Shot

Of course, you can get a pretty cool “forever” picture as the software shows a preview of your screen showing a preview of your screen showing a preview… you get the idea. When that is set, and you pick a broadcast web site, click Broadcast and you are online.

Web sites that handle streaming often can take what is on your web cam and stream that, but with this software, it is as if it takes what’s on your screen and makes it look like a webcam feed. There are many broadcast channels, the websites that allow users to post and others to watch live streaming video. Some of the common ones, for users of XSplit, are:

While these broadcast channels may be familiar with gamers, because Internet games are easy enough to broadcast and viewers are easy to find, the technology is easy enough for others to use.

As with any audio broadcast or recording, be sure to speak loudly and clearly. Reduce the amount of ambient noise from the room or noises you make without realizing that it is part of the audio that is being streamed. Lower the volume of the sounds to your computer speakers so viewers don’t have to hear the beeps and other sounds made by your computer, at least not above the audio level of your talking. Depending on your viewers’ computers, the quality will not be as good as your own resolution, so don’t expect very small font in screens to be viewable, but if you want to give users the general idea of a window’s layout or what actions to perform, the streaming of your screen works surprisingly well. There is only about a 12 to 20 second delay between your actions and what viewers see and hear.

I could broadcast a demonstration about how to set up broadcast software and the channel web site to display some streaming. If you have other ideas about what you would like to see on such a broadcast, be sure to leave a comment. I could show how I create blog posts. Or how to find the cheapest used books to buy online. Or how to edit a Wikipedia page. Let me know. Maybe Bill.TV is next.

Posted in publishing, Tools, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off

Technical Writing: The Secret Profession

Posted on September 3, 2011 by Bill

Years ago, when I was getting started as a technical writer I did some ghost writing – an article here and there for engineers and sales people who needed placement in industry publications and didn’t have the time to write a really good article themselves. They would give me concepts and a few keywords and check over my draft. They were great articles. This is part of the arsenal of a technical writer; you have to be ready to shoot from the hip and produce some motivating copy under a deadline. As always with ghost writing, you often don’t get credit beyond a paycheck. As I look over what I have accomplished over my career so far, this is true of a lot of my work and is true for a lot of our profession. Most of what we do, whether we are developing content for user manuals, creating online help, or any of the myriad types of writing we do, is a form of ghost writing: we don’t get visible credit – at least the reader doesn’t know our names; we are not generally acknowledged as the authors of the published deliverables; and we don’t win awards, except those awards we give ourselves. People don’t hunt for our books or our help systems because of the author. We don’t have a byline and we don’t have a fan base. So, to some extent, we are a secret profession.

That may be why many people don’t know what technical writers do. It’s not just that people don’t know what tech writing is – it’s that we aren’t allowed to tell you. We produce content that is for technical audiences only, and often very specific audiences and only over the course of a generation of technology before we have to scrap it and write new content. Most of what we do is as proprietary as product development, in fact it is part of product development. And while engineers get credit for the visible working product, the tech writer does not get credit for making it usable, for providing help, etc. (The crappy manuals that are sent with many digital electronic products or kitchen appliances often are produced without technical writers.) And the issue has been around for a long time.

The content we write is specific to a business context or a piece of machinery. A lot of what we write is not for the general public anyway, but is, instead, for a specific technical or business audience where an action must be performed and instructions are needed. Sometimes we publish within a corporation; sometimes we collaborate within a larger enterprise beyond a single corporation. Usually we write for those using specific hardware or software, but not stuff you would buy at a department store or online at eBay. We sometimes produce procedural content for continually improving processes. In my career I have produced volumes, I have copy-edited hundreds, maybe thousands of pages, I have generated topic after topic of assistance Web pages. But you won’t see my name on anything.

There’s a challenge for those of us who want to develop a professional portfolio. Being in a secret profession lets us find out all sorts of information about the product and the company, but we cannot share it with just anyone. Understanding the limits of the use of intellectual property is part of our job description, part of our profession. We remain the secret profession.

Posted in Profession, publishing | Tagged | 2 Comments

Profession in Search of a Metaphor

Posted on September 3, 2011 by Bill

The challenge for technical communication is the same one that business schools face -
there is no underlying discipline that already exists in the academy on which to build it.

  • Engineers have physics, but engineering is not physics.
  • Doctors have biology, but medicine is not biology.
  • Lawyers have the law.

But technical communication can’t claim English as it’s underlying discipline because technical communication spans languages and language is only part of the craft, but not the defining element of the profession.

The discipline must contain all these:

  • business analysis (priorities, objectives, context, value)
  • writing, rhetoric, grammar, communication
    graphics and illustration
  • content strategy
  • knowledge management
  • information architecture, UX, UI design
  • social media
  • online help

It’s about availability, accessibility, and arrangeability of the content to accomplish a business objective.

So is technical communication a boat adrift on the professional sea? a boat without an anchor? Or is it a profession that has been orphaned searching for its parents, its roots? Which metaphor works best here?

Posted in Criticism, Information Architecture, Philosphy, Profession | Tagged | 1 Comment

Disappearing (Auto)Number Trick

Posted on August 5, 2011 by Bill

For all you Adobe FrameMaker enthusiasts, here’s an interesting one for you. When I upgraded from FrameMaker version 7 to version 10, I noticed something funny. (Let me say that this is the only quirky thing I have noticed in my otherwise perfect upgrade.) A paragraph format that had previously displayed an autonumber (in this case the chapter number) now just displayed a blank line. Where did my number go? If I add a character on that line, then it displayed the number, but if the line was empty, the autonumber did not display, which it had done previously before the upgrade.

Today, I discovered how to display the autonumber. In the Paragraph Designer, change the position from “End of Paragraph” to “Start of Paragraph”. I don’t know why this makes a difference, but it does. Maybe FrameMaker now assumes that an autonumber does not need to display if it is at the end of a blank paragraph, but it does display at the start of a blank paragraph. With the End of Paragraph setting for that paragraph format, the autonumber is not displayed, but with Start of Paragraph, the autonumber is displayed.

FrameMaker 9 Paragraph Designer Dialog with Position Field

The autonumbering is working fine, it’s just the display. I wonder if this is a bug in FrameMaker or if there’s a reason that they don’t display the number if set to End of Paragraph with no text – as soon as you add text, as I have said, the autonumber is displayed.

I did a search online and came across this tidbit that seems to be related:

Related Tidbit:

“However, the autonumbers only get saved to the HTML file if I have the autonumbering position set to “Start of Paragraph”. If I set it to “End of Paragraph” the numbers are not saved to the HTML file.”
“I’m not sure HTML has the capability to autonumber at the end of the paragraph.”

If anyone knows more about this behavior, I would appreciate hearing from you.

Posted in Bug, Tools | Tagged , | Comments Off

Vision Day 2011

Posted on July 24, 2011 by Bill

You just can’t miniaturize or automate some things. You can’t miniaturize time spent with friends, time working through what a local chapter should do in one year, or time sharing ideas for reaching a new and changing demographic. Even with advanced technology, it takes some time to talk about important things and share with others. The local chapter of STC (Society for Technical Communication) held their latest Vision Day last Thursday night and I was fascinated by the topics covered and the wealth of experience available in the dozen or so professionals present. This is a chapter that is responsive to the professionals in the community and wants to offer relevant programs and collaborative events. So two hours is what it took – it could not be rushed – and yet the time flew by.

Vision Day 2011 table

Perhaps Andrea, as the incoming president, will realize this as a metaphor for her term as president – the time will fly by. There will be so much to do, and there will seem to be too little time, and when the year is up, she will wonder where the time went. During last Thursday night’s meeting, she went through quite a long list of possible activities and got feedback from some key people. The meeting was well attended. Though Andrea joked that with over 100 members in the chapter, there should be plenty of people at a meeting, I thought the turnout was good – over 10 people. That’s over 10%! There were old timers and newbies, men and women, young and old.

Some programming ideas that were discussed included, in no particular order:

  • lightning talks
  • open mic
  • unconference
  • joint meetings
  • tools training
  • social events
  • webinars (both STC and local)
  • one-day competition judging
  • collaborative events
  • mock interviews
  • resume writing sessions

These are all great ideas and I wish the chapter the best of luck. I might even volunteer to help with some of these. If you are in the Research Triangle Park, NC area, you should consider volunteering too.

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Interviews, Tests, and Technical Writers

Posted on July 9, 2011 by Bill

There has been discussion of late about tests to give to technical writers during job interviews and it’s time for me to weigh in on this topic. But before I express my point of view, let’s see what other knowledgeable and professional people have said.

What Others Have Said Already

I like the item “Ask the candidate to evaluate your company’s existing documentation” in Tom’s first post. I don’t agree with Tom’s change of mind, that testing is essential. As I’ll explain.

Tests are Not the Goal

First of all, writing tests are not real-world situations so they don’t tell you enough about the skills of the person you are testing to make the time worthwhile. A perennial question is “What makes a good writing test for a technical author?” Well, for the sake of argument, I’ll go along with this and say that this is a valid question. But rather than having the candidate write something from scratch, here is what I would do:

Give her a page of text (incomplete and unedited) and put her in the room with two users (say, employees posing as customers) and have her figure out what’s relevant in the text and what the deliverable should be.

Second of all, the title “technical writing” has two words, so don’t ignore the “technical”. If you are going to test candidates on their ability to write, are you also prepared to test them on their technical ability or their ability to understand and converse about technical matters? Can the candidate carry on a conversation with a subject matter expert about something technical? Can they troubleshoot a broken device? Have they seen the latest hardware? What would they test on new technology?

Third, you don’t work in a vacuum, that is, alone, so why test the candidate in isolation? If you are going to ask “How would you document blah blah blah?” then join them in that process, because they’re not going to do it alone but with others. As they start to answer the question, share your ideas and see what they do with you ideas. Will this be a collaborative adventure or a competitive or combative struggle? Technical writers rarely sit by themselves as if writing the great novel – if you have each sitting by herself, then you are not managing that technical writer properly. Technical writers need input, need collaboration, need editing, need interaction with subject matter experts and access to products and test systems.

The Interview is Not the Time for Tests

My basic opinion is that tests are not appropriate in interviews. Interviews are not a time to give tests. An interview is an opportunity, and one with a limited time parameter, for professionals to talk with each other and try to get a sense of whether the person is a good match for the position. If you need to give someone a test to determine their qualifications, then give them a test, but don’t waste the time in the interview. If you need to establish credentials or prove the truthfulness of a resume, then you are missing something or not doing your homework.

The interview is also a time to discover if you and the candidate can work together and communicate. If you are going to test me during an interview, then I should have the right to test your ability to manage. If you give me a one-hour test to access my ability to write, I should give you a one-hour assessment of your managerial ability. But professionals have a way of communicating that does not require this rudimentary level of determination. If testing is required, figure out what level of testing can be done before the interview and tell the candidate that the testing is a requirement. The interview is not the time for testing.

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Minimalist Window Top Design

Posted on July 1, 2011 by Bill

I have been noticing recently that this generation of Window applications and Web applications have a very minimalist approach to what appears at the top of the window or page. Rather than take up valuable screen real estate with branding or menus or other static elements, these applications have a very reduced set of menus and buttons, some having only one button that hides all the menus. One of the most extreme examples is the top area of Mozilla Firefox 5 that combines branding and menus all under one single button (almost tab-like) at the top left corner.

Mozilla Firefox minimal top

You can’t get any more minimalist than that. Of course, this assumes that you very infrequently need to change the options or settings, or view the version of the browser or download add-ons or print a page. Most of the space of the window is reserved for browsing the web. Even the area for typing the web address or selecting a favorite is all collapsed to a single line.

Oh, wait, Google Chrome is even more so because the branding is on the first tab, not a separate menu.
Google Chrome Minimal Top

Other examples of this minimal downsizing is evident in web applications like Facebook and Twitter.
Facebook top minimal

Twitter Minimal Top

Even Adobe Framemaker has a reduced footprint.

Framemaker minimal top

And Microsoft Paint for Windows 7.

Paint top minimal

Granted, the ribbon bar is pretty fat and bulky, but above that there is very little space used for branding and menu of operations.

Maybe all this is related to the move toward mobile apps for display on much smaller devices.

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