Accommodating Active Learners in Software Documentation Decisions  

Recent research focusing on a minimalist approach to computer software documentation has explored ways to design computer software tutorials and workbooks for users with an active learning style. The principles of minimalism and active learning styles, however, are less frequently applied to traditional reference manuals. This paper reviews several elements of minimalism and suggests ways to apply strategies for active learners to traditional reference manuals.

Smart, Karl L. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Documentation>Instructional Design>Software

Accurate Image Manipulation for Desktop Publishing

Devoted to the best possible quality in the desktop publishing workflow. This calls for accurate calibration and correct choice for the working space.

AIM for DTP. Articles>Graphic Design>Document Design>Color

Acrobat Features Turbocharge the Online Review Process

One of the more tedious and error-prone processes in technical writing is that of collaborative document review. Even when documents are shared electronically, keeping track of comments, suggestions, and changes contributed by multiple team members can be exasperating. Too often errors due to collaborative review lead to delays, missed deadlines, misunderstandings and an inaccurate final document.

Gravel, Charlie. Carolina Communique (2003). Articles>Document Design>Software>Adobe Acrobat

Adobe FrameMaker Autonumbering Examples

Autonumbering had changed as new versions of FrameMaker have arrived. What worked in FrameMaker 5 might have broken in 5.5. This is due to changes Adobe made in the restart building blocks (request presentation). While our examples below use the maximum building blocks (meaning a little extra work), the result is numbering schemes that are more flexible for multiple versions of FrameMaker.

Bright Path Solutions (2004). Articles>Document Design>Software>Adobe FrameMaker

Advantage of a Rainy Summer

This article deals, despite the title above, with aspects on handling and checking of technical documentation. I consider these aspects as part of the functionality of documentation besides more conventional functionality such as factual correctness, layout, combination of figures and text.

Rullgård, Åke. TC-FORUM (2000). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design

Applying the Sensation-Perception Continuum to User Documentation  

The sensation-perception continuum represents the interplay of sensation and perception in everything we think and do. Technical communicators must exploit this continuum by understanding and applying sensory filters and perceptual tendencies in the design and development of information. This paper discuss three sensory filters: thresholds, cocktail-party effect, and sensory adaptation; it discusses four perceptual tendencies: perceptual set, figure-ground relationships, laws of grouping, and goodness of figures.

Coe, Marlana A. STC Proceedings (1996). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design

Applying Web 2.0 Technologies to Technical Documentation

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".

Pratt, Ellis. Cherryleaf (2006). Articles>Web Design>Documentation>Technical Writing

Baking up a Batch of PDF Files  

Customize how Acrobat works for you by building and using batch sequences. The beauty of a batch sequence is that you can modify or run it as you like.

Baker, Donna L. Adobe (2007). Articles>Document Design>Software>Adobe Acrobat

Bastien PROT: XPS une alternative au format PDF

XPS (XML Paper Specification) est un format de fichier électronique à présentation fixe comme le PDF du concurrent Adobe qui préserve la mise en forme du document et permet le partage des fichiers sans perte dinformation. Le format XPS garantit que, lorsquun fichier est affiché en ligne ou imprimé, il conserve le format souhaité.

Rédacteur Technique, Le (2007). (French) Articles>Document Design>Standards>XML

Best of Show -- Winners of STC's International Competitions  

Read about the Best of Show winners of the 2005•2006 competitions in international technical art, international online communication, and international technical publications. Also, meet the winner of the international student technical communication competition.

Intercom (2006). Articles>TC>Document Design>International

Beyond Help: Making Help a Core Component of an Electronic Performance Support System   

With the advent of HTML Help and the ability to embed Help directly inside an application, there’s been an increased interest in creating Help systems that are seamlessly integrated with their host applications. By blurring the line between the application and the Help that supports it, and by developing Help that automatically responds to user actions, application developers and Help authors now have the ability to develop true electronic performance support systems (EPSS). With this new ability will come a paradigm shift in the ways applications are developed and documented.

Wexler, Steven S. STC Proceedings (1999). Articles>Document Design>Help>EPSS

Beyond Software Manuals and On-line Help: Interactive Help

Software user guides have traditionally provided assistance when the user requested help. Context-sensitivity enabled help systems to predict the most appropriate topic to present. For Windows applications, the move from Microsoft WinHelp to the new Microsoft HTML Help format allows user instructions to be presented in the same window as the application. This offers technical authors some extraordinary opportunities to provide intelligent, predictive, interactive help without the user having to request it. In this paper, we will explore one of the first such interactive help systems (for the Archivist e-mail archiving software), and see where the technology is moving.

Self, Tony. HyperWrite (2003). Articles>Documentation>Interaction Design>Help

Bloom's Taxonomy in Technical Content Development

Technical writers provide information enabling users to learn and apply various technologies. In the endeavor to enable users, technical writers often need to use different strategies of classification, presentation, and structuring for the different types of information. However, in most cases such classifications or decisions about the best method of presentation and optimum structure are guided by instinct and are rarely heuristic. In this article, we present an established classification of information called Bloom’s taxonomy (of educational objectives), which can help technical writers make decisions about content classification.

Robbani, Wasique. KeyContent.org (2006). Articles>Document Design>Academic>Contextual Inquiry

Book Design

An overview of the typical components of a printed technical book and the typical content, format, style, and sequence of those components.

McMurrey, David A. Illuminati Online (2001). Articles>Document Design>Publishing

Bridging the Gap Between Design and Editorial

With both Adobe InDesign® CS and Adobe InCopy® CS in your publishing workflow, writers and editors can compose stories in InCopy at the same time designers are laying out the pages using InDesign—without overwriting each other’s work.

Adobe (2003). Articles>Document Design>Software>Adobe InDesign

Building the Treasure House: Creating Knowledge Bases on the World-Wide Web  

Web knowledge bases offer an excellent platform for delivering technical documentation and customer support information. They also represent an area of great opportunity for technical communicators to expand their skills, satisfy their customers, and create value for their employers or clients. This session explores the components of a web knowledge base and the tasks involved in planning and building one.

Massa, Jack A. STC Proceedings (1998). Articles>Documentation>Online>Web Design

Bulletproof Your Brochures

Brochures are good for some things but not others. The key to not wasting your money is to understand what brochures do well, and what they don't do well.

Bennaco (2005). Articles>Document Design>Marketing

A Case of Exhaustive Documentation: Re-centering System-oriented Organizations Around User Need    

Braun Corporation's home-grown documentation processes served the organization well for its first 50 years as it grew from a local to a nationally-competitive producer of mobility and accessibility products. Now poised to become a global leader in its field, this corporation found its efforts hampered by ineffective and outdated documentation practices, which were hurting the company's competitive advantage. This article describes Braun Corporation's curious mixture of global reach and local isolation. By bringing in a technical communicator with expertise in user-centered design, Braun has begun reforming its formerly exhaustive documentation and communication practices. While technical communicators have incorporated a variety of strategies to develop user-centered and task-based documentation, less attention has been placed on changing the cultures of these organizations. The case presented here represents a shift from establishing documentation procedures to critically assessing and reforming existing procedures for the global workplace, describing the shift from ineffective and exhaustive processes to effective processes with defined goals and measurable outcomes. The article concludes with an inventory for determining whether other organizations are over-documenting processes and products, and offers suggestions for creating better documentation procedures.

Salvo, Michael J., Meredith W. Zoetewey and Kate Agena. Technical Communication Online (2007). Articles>Documentation>Management>User Centered Design

Charles Morris's Semiotic Model and Analytical Studies Of Visual and Verbal Representations in Technical Communication    

In this article, the author demonstrates that the semiotic model proposed by Charles Morris enables us to optimize our understanding of technical communication practices and provides a good point of inquiry. To illustrate this point, the author exemplifies the semiotic approaches by scholars in technical communication and elaborates Morris's model through analyzing visual and verbal elements of technical communication brochures from semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic levels. The discussion of semiotic approach reinforced by various examples illustrates that the semiotic model can be a tangible theoretical and practical tool to help students and practitioners study and analyze the use of visual and verbal elements in technical communication.

Fan, Jiang-Ping. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2006). Articles>Document Design>Assessment

Cleaning up PDF Documents in Acrobat

If you are posting your PDF document to a web site, you'll generally want to upload a clean copy that will streamline the viewing experience for your site visitors. This tip outlines a quick way to remove unnecessary annotations, widgets, JavaScript, links, bookmarks and attachments, along with optimizing your documents for fast web viewing.

Shea, Dan. PlanetPDF (2007). Articles>Document Design>Software>Adobe Acrobat

Review: Coherence, Continuity, and Cohesion: Theoretical Foundations for Document Design by Kim Sydow Campbell    

A review of Kim Sydow Campbell's book Coherence, Continuity, and Cohesion: Theoretical Foundations for Document Design.

Kirloskar, Mukta. International Journal for Technical Communication (2006). Articles>Reviews>Document Design

Combining the Print and Online Media Offers Synergies

Companies had decades of experience in using printed materials to persuade readers to contact them, whether by phone, mail, or in person. This model of interaction with customers had worked so well and so predictably that we simply moved it online, largely unmodified. That was by no means wrong, but as Web technology and our comprehension of that technology both evolved, the approach proved limiting.

Hart, Geoffrey J.S. Geoff-Hart.com (2001). Articles>Document Design>Information Design

Coming to Terms  

Picking paper involves deciphering a lot of arcane terminology. Here's a quick reference guide.

Sidles, Constance J. Adobe Magazine (1996). Articles>Document Design>Prepress>Paper

Communicating Rapidly Changing Information  

When purchasing complex software products, users frequently receive large quantities of information; however, to use the product efficiently, they need a visually obvious starting point that helps them locate the specific information they need. With maintained With the quantity and diversity of information, customers need to be able to find the information they need without flipping through endless pages. In order to give the users a starting point in all of the printed and ASCII file information. we created a document entitled the Guide to products, users can use the features available with a new release most efficiently if they have an overview of the major changes to the product and to the information about the product. By using visual devices and creating an overview document. for each release, technical communicators can decrease their costs and increase users' productivity.

Bown, Jennifer and Connie M. Bibus. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design