http://tc.eserver.org/authors/Pratt,_Ellis A bibliography of works by Pratt, Ellis in the field of technical communication. en-us Copyright (c) 2005-08 by the EServer. All rights reserved. tclib-editorial@eserver.org (TC Library Editorial Board) webmaster@eserver.org (Geoffrey Sauer) http://tc.eserver.org/images/newlogo.gif http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Pratt,_Ellis http://tc.eserver.org/35826.html http://tc.eserver.org/35826.html Wikis are a great way to create and publish documentation online, but there are many wikis that haven’t worked. They comprise just a few pages of incomplete, out of date information. Why is that? Why do some wikis work and others just fail? Here are six key reasons. http://tc.eserver.org/35530.html http://tc.eserver.org/35530.html This video on simplifying business, using the metaphor of organising a children’s party, made me smile and consider how successful documentation projects are managed. The presenter is suggesting managers need to, in complex systems, give up rigid control from above. Instead, they should watch for organisational patterns, encouraging the good and discouraging the bad. http://tc.eserver.org/35423.html http://tc.eserver.org/35423.html The reasons for the White House's decision to run its Web site, whitehouse.gov, on the open source content management system Drupal are being discussed on various Web sites. Alongside Drupal's functionality, flexibility and openness, some are suggesting that Drupal's documentation was also a key factor for deciding to use this system. http://tc.eserver.org/35436.html http://tc.eserver.org/35436.html This a short video overview of managing a documentation project. It's something we put together as a test of some of the functionality of Techsmith's Camtasia software. http://tc.eserver.org/35195.html http://tc.eserver.org/35195.html For simple, commonly known actions in a closed environment, you probably can design your way to a “no user documentation” approach. Good design can also lead to less documentation. However, customers may expect to do more than that with a product and, in those situations, documentation can play a key role in meeting those expectations. http://tc.eserver.org/34777.html http://tc.eserver.org/34777.html In order to understand the way marketing people see the world, it’s worth reading Blogs on marketing (by people such as Seth Godin), the Cluetrain Manifesto, and reading a few books on marketing. http://tc.eserver.org/34698.html http://tc.eserver.org/34698.html It’s often useful to look at the economic and technological pressures in other industries, to see if the trends emerging there are relevant to the technical communications/publications sector. In recent Blogs, we’ve covered the issues emerging in education, but the telecommunications industry might also provide some useful insights. http://tc.eserver.org/32979.html http://tc.eserver.org/32979.html Whilst applications are becoming more complex, many people believe that online user assistance hasn't changed much since WinHelp was introduced with Windows 3. This is a misconception. There have been many developments in this field aimed at increasing end-user productivity and satisfaction. http://tc.eserver.org/31143.html http://tc.eserver.org/31143.html David Ogilvy was an advertising genius who distilled his successful concepts and techniques into a bestselling book I've just finished reading, called "Confessions of an Advertising Man". I wanted to read his book, because I often find it useful to look at other professions and ask whether their ideas could be applied to the world of technical authoring. http://tc.eserver.org/31145.html http://tc.eserver.org/31145.html The benefits of user documentation (reduced support calls, increase in the perceived value of the product, happier customers, better customer retention, increase product usage etc) can be identified, but it can be hard to measure them and accurately quantify the Return on Investment. http://tc.eserver.org/31144.html http://tc.eserver.org/31144.html I would argue that 'Presentation Zen' contains ideas that are also relevant to technical communication. http://tc.eserver.org/30262.html http://tc.eserver.org/30262.html Professional business writers, such as technical authors, typically break a document down into small, discrete units of information, organised around a skeleton of topic headings. If you use this 'component' or 'modular' approach, you can plan and structure the document using the heading 'labels' that describe each section. http://tc.eserver.org/28228.html http://tc.eserver.org/28228.html This article is based on my presentation at the Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators' annual conference in October, 2006. Every now and then, there is a change in the value of what technical authors deliver. These are moments when organisations pay attention to technical documentation. This is because they recognise that these changes mean they can create something that will be of real value to the business and to their customers. In recent years, there have been three "waves of interestingness". The first wave was the introduction of Windows Help (WinHelp). The second major wave was the introduction of the Internet and intranets. This was a time when organisations looked at how they could transfer large amounts of information from paper to online. They were faced with issues such as how users could access and understand all this information easily - issues that technical communicators deal with on a day-to-day basis. I believe we're just about to approach the new wave, which we have called "Tech Writing 2.0". http://tc.eserver.org/28229.html http://tc.eserver.org/28229.html This report outlines the developments in what many are calling "Web 2.0" and the impact that these developments may have on technical and user documentation. We've called these trends "Tech Writing 2.0". Tech Writing 2.0 promises a new means of communication that business can use to promote and support their products and services. This means that the nature of technical communication will change. http://tc.eserver.org/27003.html http://tc.eserver.org/27003.html These days, staff in localisation departments spend their time essentially on project management, translation and quality assurance. However, by using one of the emerging systems that integrate content creation, localisation and content management into an efficient system, many of these activities can be automated or avoided all together. We are now seeing the emergence of technical content control systems that can be used to improve the turn-around time, translation costs and the quality of the translations themselves. In recent projects, where these systems have been implemented, organisations have seen substantial savings in localisation costs, with word count reductions and translation costs of around 30%. http://tc.eserver.org/23069.html http://tc.eserver.org/23069.html In May 2004, I did a presentation to the London group of the Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators on the future for technical authors. This article expands one of the topics discussed - how to promote and market technical authors. http://tc.eserver.org/18887.html http://tc.eserver.org/18887.html This article explains how we built a solution to producing sales proposals and other sales literature for our own company using an affordable content management solution.