The Successes and Challenges of Visual Language  

Discusses efforts to create manuals that rely entirely on pictures for communication.

Hofmann, Patrick. Intercom (2004). Design>Document Design>Graphic Design>Visual Rhetoric

Tapping into Creativity  

Information designers are continually faced with the challenge of finding creative information solutions. In this workshop we invite you to discover ways to unlock your hidden creative talents to enhance both your information products and your work processes. Through role-play, narrative, and audience participation, each speaker will lead the audience to recognize common experiences and challenges in bringing more creativity to your work with clients. The speakers will demonstrate specific techniques that enhance both your own and your clients’ creative thinking and actions.

Banner, Phylise, Patrick Hofmann, Robert Reynolds, Edward See and Elinor Knodel. STC Proceedings (1999). Articles>Information Design

Wordless Manuals: Replacing Words with Pictures  

How do you convey an entire set of complex instructions without words, and why would you even bother? Since he first quipped this question, Patrick Hofmann has deleted countless words from the pages of hardware user manuals. Patrick is a technical illustrator and writer who, with the help of his team at Quintext information engineering in Waterloo, Canada, creates wordless documentation and visual solutions for his clients. In this session, you will learn what he learned: how to use wordlessness to downsize multi-lingual sets of assembly manuals, and how to illustrate complex instructions with the same concern for usability as we have with writing.

Hofmann, Patrick. STC Proceedings (1998). Articles>Documentation>Technical Illustration