Category Archives: Tools

UA Tools Survey Review

Posted on January 22, 2013 by Bill

Joe Welinski has done it again: produced a great tools survey and published the results. Here it is: 2013 User Assistance Tools Survey While the cynical among us might think this is self serving, drawing viewers to his site to … Continue reading →

Posted in Online Survey, Tools | Tagged , , | 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 … Continue reading →

Posted in Blog, Design, Information Architecture, Online Survey, Tools, Web Applications | 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 … Continue reading →

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

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 … Continue reading →

Posted in Bug, Tools | Tagged , | Comments Off

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 … Continue reading →

Posted in Interface, Tools, User Experience, Web Applications | Tagged , , , | Comments Off

The Force of Salesforce

Posted on June 17, 2011 by Bill

We have a great local Salesforce user group, the Raleigh Salesforce.com User Group. Thanks to Deborah, Amber, Karen, Kelly and the rest for making it work! We had a great meeting today. Each time I go, there are more people … Continue reading →

Posted in cloud solutions, Social Networking, Tools, User Experience, user group meetings, User Scenarios | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off

Content for Community Consumption

Posted on April 5, 2011 by Bill

Today, Peter Grainge posted an article I wrote about RoboHelp on his web site, which is dedicated to RoboHelp tips. Here it is: Command Line Generation with RoboHelp When I was searching the Web for information on using the command … Continue reading →

Posted in Content Development, Information Architecture, Tools | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off

Real-World XML

Posted on September 5, 2010 by Bill

If you are looking for real-world technical communication examples of XML, be sure to check out The Rhetorical Nature of XML: Constructing Knowledge in Networked Environments, by J. D. Applen and Rudy McDaniel. The final chapter has several case studies, … Continue reading →

Posted in Resources, Tools, XML | Tagged , , , | Comments Off

Email is NOT a Real Workflow Tool

Posted on December 20, 2009 by Bill

Email has become the workflow tool of most people in the enterprise, but is too limited a tool to take on that task in the current enterprise. Continue reading →

Posted in Process, Tools | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off