How to Conduct a Review Meeting  

Although technical reviews of many draft user’s guides, references, and help systems occur through the black box (that is, the author sends out the material, and reviewers send it back marked up, without the two ever seeing one another), many technical communicators find that a personal meeting ultimately saves time and improves communication in the process of developing a technical communication product.

Carliner, Saul. Intercom (2003). Careers>Management>Editing

How to Organize Educational Meetings for Community and Professional Organizations    

Successful meetings are the end result of a∆ careful planning process. To successfully organize an educational meeting for a community or professional organization, you need to follow a series of steps.

Carliner, Saul. Tieline (2007). Articles>Collaboration>Community Building>STC

How to Write Information So You Can Use It Again

You have written a user’s manual for Microsoft Word for Windows. Now you have been asked to write a user’s manual for Microsoft Word for the Macintosh. The two word processors are essentially the same; the primary differences emerge from the differences between Windows and Macintosh systems. You feel that you should be able to prepare the second manual in next to no time, because you can essentially use the information you wrote for the Word for Windows manual again, with some technical changes. This is an example of re-using information and it is a common task among technical communicators. As the demand for information grows faster than the availability of people to develop that information, technical communicators are showing increasing interest in reusing information.

Carliner, Saul. Saul Carliner Studio (2003). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing

Improving Your Reader's Content Forms  

For most organizations, Reader’s Comment Forms serve primarily as Reader’s Complaint Forms. Most of these forms typically ask readers to identify errors in the text, citing location of the error, describing the error, and suggesting a change. What a waste!

Carliner, Saul. Intercom (2003). Design>Web Design>Assessment>Usability

Inconspicuous Consumption: Lessons for Web Design from Mall and Retail Design

While many scour the web for new ideas on web design, others are looking elsewhere.

Carliner, Saul. Boxes and Arrows (2003). Design>Web Design>Marketing

Integrating the Web into Education for Technical Communication Majors: A Process-Oriented Approach

As the work of professional technical communicators has broadened in scope, so has the challenge of integrating this broader range of concerns into everyday practice.Within the academic world, the response has usually been separate courses.  Many undergraduate and master's programs in technical communication sport courses in usability testing, visual communication, project management, and technical writing and editing.

Carliner, Saul. Saul Carliner Studio (2002). Articles>Education>Online

Intellectual Capital: Placing a Value on Technical Communication  

Carliner discusses the emerging discipline of intellectual capital, which attempts to develop accounting techniques for quantifying the 'brainpower' of corporations. The new service-oriented economy, Carliner argues, renders traditional accounting methods inadequate for determining the value of intangibles such as policies and procedures, the knowledge of a staff, and relationships with customers.

Carliner, Saul. Intercom (2000). Articles>Knowledge Management

Job Hunting After Thirty-Five  

Identifies several ways older technical communicators can protect themselves from age discrimination when searching for a new job.

Carliner, Saul. Intercom (2002). Careers>Interviewing>Discrimination>Elderly

Knowledge-Based Systems

Introduces you to the theory and practice of engineering expert knowledge into system designs (also referred to as intelligent communication and software). To overcome the limitations of human processing capabilities, the technology industry must increasingly move from a model of providing support, training and documentation in forms external to the system, to a model where this information is seamlessly integrated in the larger system design. Early examples of knowledge-based subsystems include wizards, agents and expert system support. In this course, you gain an understanding of the very nature of expert knowledge, its value to the expert, and the way in which the expert constructs this knowledge. You also learn to develop strategies for collecting and organizing knowledge from experts, and ways to integrate expert knowledge in system designs.

Carliner, Saul. Bentley College (2002). Academic>Courses>Knowledge Management

Manager's Toolkit: How to Report the Status of a Project

As you develop the communication product, your client and the team of people working with you will be interested in the progress of your work. To inform them, regularly publish a progress report. The progress report offers many benfits. It anticipates your client’s need for information about an in-progress project, makes the team aware of changes to the original plans and situations that could cause problems before those situations become problems, and maintains the common vision for the project that you painstakingly created when you developed plans of the information design. Most likely, you will publish the the report weekly or bi-weekly. Let your client determine the exact frequency; when your client approves your information designs, ask how frequently the client would prefer a progress report.

Carliner, Saul. STC (1999). Careers>Management>Reports

Modeling Information for Three-Dimensional Space: Lessons Learned from Museum Exhibit Design    

Perhaps these concerns sound familiar: visitors complain that they cannot find information of interest. One observes, 'I know there's information about that type of robotics here, but darned if I can find it;' visitors enter the site but don't stay particularly long. Some might even express an interest in the subject; let's say it's modern art. But they leave almost as quickly as they enter without paying much attention to the artwork that the designers painstakingly displayed; other visitors spend hours at the site but never seem to notice particular sections. For example, a visitor might be thoroughly familiar with the content on radios but oblivious to the section on industrial hardware. These observations could describe visitors to Web sites. Actually, these observations describe museum visitors. The connections between the two are discussed in this article.

Carliner, Saul. Technical Communication Online (2001). Design>Information Design>Usability

Models, Processes, and Techniques of Information Design

Although graphic design and document design are important aspects of it, information design has a much broader focus than just the appearance of information. Its ultimate focus is on the effectiveness of that information.

Carliner, Saul. Saul Carliner Studio. Design>Information Design>TC

An Overview of the Technical Communication Industry

The more you know about the field, the more effectively you can find employment, market your services, develop your skills, develop perspective, and perform meaningful work.

Carliner, Saul. Saul Carliner Studio. Articles>TC

Physical, Cognitive, and Affective: A Three-part Framework for Information Design    

This article first explores limitations of the prevailing concept of document design. Next, it offers a definition of information design—a framework meant to broaden the popular perspective on design in our field. The article then describes in detail the three types of design activities involved in technical communication: physical design, cognitive design, and affective design. Last, this article suggests the strengths and limitations of this framework. Appendixes describe implications of this framework to the teaching of technical communication to majors in the field, to the practice of technical communication in industry, and to research in the field.

Carliner, Saul. Technical Communication Online (2000). Articles>Human Computer Interaction>Information Design

Report of the STC Education Task Force: Considering the Current and Future Role of STC in its Mission to Educate its Members  

To date, STC has not been very aggressive or innovative in terms of electronic delivery of educational content to our members or others in the profession. Aside from telephone seminars/Webinars and the online availability of articles from Intercom and the journal, the Society has largely ignored the methods that its members, their companies, and other professional organizations are using to deliver content to stakeholders. Because only a fraction of the membership attends the annual conference and regional/chapter conferences, and because the Society is attempting to reach out to members of the profession outside North America, it is imperative that STC pursue other means of offering educational opportunities. By truly leveraging the power of the Web and other emerging technologies, STC can address a worldwide audience and provide significant educational offerings to members and prospective members alike.

Barnum, Carol M., Saul Carliner, David Dayton, Lynn Harris, George F. Hayhoe, Bill Horton, Kathryn Northcut, Makarand Pandit, Janice C. 'Ginny' Redish and Alison Reynolds. STC (2006). Articles>Education>Reports>STC

Resources on E-Learning for Academic Courses

A comprehensive collection of links to e-learning resources online.

Carliner, Saul. Saul Carliner Studio (2003). Resources>Directories>Education>Online

Resources on E-Learning for Training and Performance Support

A comprehensive collection of links to e-learning resources online for workplace training.

Carliner, Saul. Saul Carliner Studio (2003). Articles>Workplace>Education>Online

Resources on the Business and Management of Information Design Groups

The resources at this website assist you in managing the projects, people, and business of information design and development.

Carliner, Saul. Saul Carliner Studio. Design>Information Design

Strategic Challenges for Technical Communication Managers  

Suggests ways that technical communication managers can confront the challenges facing their departments in 2002.

Carliner, Saul. Intercom (2002). Careers>Management>TC

Taking Cues from the Culture: The Case of Network Earth    

This article explores the design choices for 'Network Earth,' a museum exhibit that introduced the general public to computer networks and related issues. The exhibit was one of three studied in a larger research project to develop a grounded model of design for learning in museums. Network Earth was developed by a team that had neither formal training nor academic credentials usually associated with museum exhibits. Although the design process and some of the general goals were similar to those at other sites studied and in the literature, certain practices differed. The team excluded historical objects, let donors influence content, and used different terminology. These differences appear to be cultural. With a limited affiliation with the occupational culture of museum exhibit design, the Network Earth team made choices that were more consistent with the culture of high technology, the subject of the museum and the industry that provided most of its financial support.

Carliner, Saul. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (2000). Articles>Education>Instructional Design

Theories, Techniques and Issues in Online Learning

This site describes what online learning is and identifies its major uses; identifies the four major types of online learning; provides an overview of the technology needed to make online learning happen; lists the project issues--that is, management and learning issues--that need to be addressed when developing materials for online learning.

Carliner, Saul. Saul Carliner Studio. Articles>Education>Instructional Design>Online

Trends for 2000: Thriving in the Boom Years  

This article is one of two cover stories detailing trends in technical communication for 2000. Saul Carliner outlines trends in business, technology, writing and design, and the profession of technical communication, and examines their impact on technical communication jobs and organizations in general.

Carliner, Saul. Intercom (2000). Articles>TC>History

What Do We Manage? A Survey of the Management Portfolios of Large Technical Communication Groups    

Finds that user's guides, reference manuals, and help account for most products, and about half are print. Reports that no widely used method or metric of assessing effectiveness exists

Carliner, Saul. Technical Communication Online (2004). Articles>Documentation>Management

What Executives Must Know about E-Learning

So you’ve heard about this e-learning thing. Can it work in your organization? Before you make an assessment, consider these issues.

Carliner, Saul. Saul Carliner Studio (2002). Articles>Management>Education>Online