Influence of Burke and Lessing on the Semiotic Theory of Document Design: Ideologies and Good Visual Images of Documents    

The syntactic aspect of semiotic theory, especially its "aesthetic principle," is very influential in document design theories and practices. It has its roots in Burke's and Lessing s gender-related theories of images. Thus, it is laden with ideologies: it embodies our patriarchal attitudes and our iconophobia. Employing the semiotic theory in document design, we are making choices to reinforce the gender-related ideology in Burke's and Lessing's theories. It is time for us to re-conceive the "aesthetic principle" by de-emphasizing it and to adopt the reconciliation approach to design effective documents targeted at various rhetorical situations.

Ding, Daniel D. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2000). Articles>Document Design>Visual Rhetoric>Theory

Information Planning for Successful Online Documentation  

Creating an information plan should be the first phase of any publication development life cycle, whether hard copy or online. The plan is a tool for reporting the results of your research about your audience, their tasks, the market, and the product. The plan presents the basic organization and content of the publications you intend to build, effectively directing the documentation team to produce a publication with very specific goals in mind.

Stevens, Dawn M. STC Proceedings (1996). Articles>Information Design>Management>Documentation

The Ins and Outs of InDesign

If you ever create multi page layouts such as brochures, newsletters or booklets there is an application that is made for you. InDesign, which can be purchased as a stand alone product or as part of the Adobe Creative Suite, has many, many tools for streamlining the process of setting up and working on these types of projects. In this article we will look at what InDesign is for and highlight some of the features that set it apart from other applications.

Dudley, Kim. Community MX (2006). Articles>Document Design>Software>Adobe InDesign

Instruction-Writing Exercises (for High School)

These guidelines and 14 scaffolded exercises respond to the unmet need for a psychologically solid, work-relevant way to learn technical writing by students who are NOT facile writers already.

Girill, T.R. STC East Bay (2001). Articles>Education>Instructional Design>Documentation

Instructional Design and Software Quality Assurance, Part I  

Describes how instructional design principles can improve documentation.

Nayar, Pawan. Intercom (2001). Articles>Documentation>Instructional Design

Instructional Design: Choosing the Proper Authoring Tool  

Searching for the right tool for your instructional design needs? Learn about your options through capsule reviews of instructional simulation programs and full-service authoring tools.

Holden, Gene. Intercom (2004). Articles>Documentation>Instructional Design

Instructions for installing Adobe PS 4.26 for Windows 95/98 And Attaching it to Acrobat Distiller for use with FrameMaker 5.5x, with Acrobat 3.0x  

Instructions for installing Adobe PS 4.26 for Windows 95/98 and attaching it to Acrobat Distiller for use with FrameMaker 5.5x.

Halva, Wade C. InFrame (1998). Articles>Software>Document Design>Adobe FrameMaker

An Integrated Approach for a Model Based Document Production and Management

The primary aim of the research presented in this paper is to provide pragmatic solutions to the problems of integrity and consistency of document based information, describing a building throughout its life cycle. The research demonstrates the computer-aided generation of project documents via a construction project data model. The first research activity involved the development of a Construction Project Reference Model (CPRM) and a Document Reference Model, from which various Applied Document Type Models can be derived. The work concentrated on the French Full Specification Document: the CCTP (Cahier des Clauses Techniques Particulières), which is generated during the detail design stage. A generic Association Model was developed and used to index the CPRM’s concepts to the CCTP’s documentary elements supporting their description. Finally, the mechanisms enabling the generation of the project CCTP from the proposed structured reference CCTP are described.

Rezgui, Yacine and Philippe Debras. ITcon (1996). Articles>Document Design>Information Design

Intentional Learning in an Intentional World: Audience Analysis and Instructional System Design for Successful Learning and Performance    

How do we support successful, lifelong learners and performers and help them competently respond to rapidly changing opportunities in the 21st century. The answer to this question lies in how well we understand audiences differentiated by key learning differences and consider how these differentiations influence winning learning and performance. Historically, cognitive-rich explanations have tended to underplay the dominant impact of affective and conative factors on thinking and learning. Recently, these dimensions have gained considerable importance as contemporary multidisciplinary research has begun to demonstrate how intentions and emotions can influence, guide, and, at times, override our thinking and other cognitive processes. More importantly, research suggests that intentions and emotions are a dominant, powerful influence on learner success.

Martinez, Margaret. Journal of Computer Documentation (2000). Articles>Documentation>Instructional Design>Education

Investigating Presentational Change in U.K. Annual Reports    

This article examines structural and format changes in annual reports of U.K. listed companies from 1965 to 2004 with a particular focus on graph use. The article compares a new sample of 2004 annual reports with preexisting samples by Lee and by Beattie and Jones. Lee's identified trends continue. There has been a sharp increase in page length, voluntary information, and narrative information, particularly among large listed companies. A detailed analysis of voluntary disclosure indicates changes in the incidence and pattern of generic sections. Graph usage is now universal. However, key financial graph use has slightly declined, replaced by graphs depicting other operating issues. Impression management through selectivity, graphical measurement distortion, and manipulation of the length of time series graphed are common. Overall, annual reports continue to exhibit many features of public relations documents rather than financially driven, statutory documents, and the analysis of graph usage suggests a need for policy guidelines to protect users.

Beattie, Vivien, Alpa Dhanani and Michael John Jones. JBC (2008). Articles>Business Communication>Document Design>United Kingdom

Is Your Website Poised to Deal With Its Growth?  

Every webmaster nourishes the dream that his or her website will make it the big way. This is very much human because people carry out any task in ardent hope. What is more human out here is that earthy fellows like us base our aspirations more on speculation rather than specific set of steps undertaken to bring the dream a bit closer to reality. And this is not all, particularly in case of growth of a site which brings newer problems in the wake of its growth. It cannot be disputed that you can probably get some good web hosting on economy price. But if you expect top of the line service on this price, acknowedge gracefully that your are just asking for the moon. Probably you are not catching up with wisdom that business needs decisive investments.

Azam, Rahbre. Amateur Writerz (2008). Articles>Documentation>Web Design>Technical Writing

It's a Colorful, Wired World  

Adobe® PostScript 3 printing systems offer a variety of new features for better, faster, Web-savvy printing. Here's an overview of what they are and how they're likely to affect you.

Nordling, Tamis and Wendy Katz. Adobe Magazine (1997). Articles>Document Design>Prepress>Color

It's Not Enough to Say What it Does

All too often, developers think that documenting their new creations just means writing a detailed technical description of what it does. In a sense, they're explaining things to themselves. But what you really need to do is explain things to someone who's coming across your stuff for the first time.

McManus, Eamonn. Artima (2004). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design

Karen A. Schriver: The InfoDesign interview

Karen Schriver is the author of Dynamics in Document Design: Creating texts for readers, an extensive, multidimensional portrait of what readers need from documents and of ways to integrate word and image in order to better meet those needs. She is the former co-director of the graduate program in technical communication and document design at Carnegie Mellon University. Her company, KSA Document Design and Research, helps organizations improve the quality of their paper and electronic communications through strategies based on research and best practices.

Bogaards, Peter J. InformationDesign (2005). Articles>Interviews>Document Design>Visual Rhetoric

Keeping Pace with Change

Documentation isn't the most fun part of design and IA, but does it have to be the most painful? Samantha Bailey looks at a tool that may help.

Bailey, Samantha. Boxes and Arrows. Articles>Documentation>Information Design

The Kind of Documentation Users Really Want

Have you ever asked your users what kind of training materials they want, or how they prefer to learn software? This kind of information is critical to figuring out what help deliverables to produce. But really when it comes down to it, there are only so many options — printed manuals, short guides, interactive flash guides, videos, online help, live training, reference cards, context-sensitive help, workbooks and exercises, or, usually the favorite, someone to stand by their computer and answer questions whenever they need help.

Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2008). Articles>Documentation>Usability>User Centered Design

Let's Stop Writing Documentation and Start Working for the Users  

Nearly 20 years ago, the profession of technical communication began to focus on developing task-oriented documentation. Although task-oriented documentation has always been produced, particularly for consumer products, it was not the standard in the computer industry. More often, people writing about computer systems focused on the system rather than on the tasks people needed to perform. Systems-oriented documentation was the norm.

ComTech Services. Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design

Let's Stop Writing Documentation and Start Working for the Users  

Technical communication's long-time focus on task-oriented documentation has left customers with too many tasks and too much information; itï¿Âs time for a new approach. A user-centered approach reflecting a thorough understanding of users and how they engage the product is the surest route to effective documentation and training. To understand what users need, we need to get closer to them by spending time in their workplaces, watching them execute everyday tasks, and listening to them. Through this kind of ethnographic activity, we will become user experts, gaining credibility within our own organizations and our user communities.

Hackos, JoAnn T. STC Proceedings (1999). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design

Little Machines: Understanding Users Understanding Interfaces    

This paper questions the ubiquitous practice of supplying minimalist information to users, of making that information functional only, of assuming that the Shannon-Weaver communication model should govern online systems, and of ignoring the social implications of such a stance. Help systems that provide fast, temporary solutions without providing any background information lead to the danger of users completing tasks that they do not understand at all. (Word will help us write a legal pleading, even if we have no idea what one is.) As a result, we have help systems that attempt to be invisible and to provide tool instruction but not conceptual instruction. Such a system presents itself as a neutral tool, but it is actually an incomplete environment, denying both the complexity and alternative (and possibly improved) modes of thinking about the subject at hand.

Johnson-Eilola, Johndan. Journal of Computer Documentation (2001). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design>Usability

Making Help More Human, and Other Discussions

Discusses a number of trends in the technical writing world, particularly the need to make help more human by adopting conversational tones and addressing the angry/frantic state of the user.

Johnson, Tom H. and Heidi Hansen. Tech Writer Voices (2007). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design>Help

Making PDFs Smaller

How can I reduce the size of several PDFs at once?

Rosenthol, Leonard. PDFzone (2003). Articles>Document Design>Software>Adobe Acrobat

Making Screen-Ready PDFs

Is there a quicker way of making screen PDFs from print-ready PDFs?

Miller, James. PDFzone (2003). Articles>Document Design>Software>Adobe Acrobat