#26396
Designing Usable Forms: The Three-Layer Model of the Form
Why do people say 'I’m not good with forms' or 'I don’t like forms' when a form is only a piece of paper, or a screen, with some printing on it? There must be something special about forms that inspires these comments.
Jarrett, Caroline. uiGarden (2005). Design>Document Design>Forms
#18271
Designing User Assistance for Internet Marketplace Applications Using Server-Side Online Help 
In this article, I examine Internet marketplace applications and the challenges they present to user-assistance design. This examination illustrates the ways in which complex Internet applications, such as marketplaces, force technical communicators to rethink their approach to online user assistance. In the course of this examination, I make a case for a model of user assistance that taps the potential for customizability, scalability, and dynamic content of the technologies that power Internet applications. However, marketplaces are only one example of the type of application that can benefit from this model because it can be implemented for any Internet or intranet application that utilizes dynamic, build-on-the-fly Internet technologies, such as Microsoft Active Server Pages or Sun Microsystem JavaServer Pages. To fulfill our responsibilities to our users, we technical communicators must be willing to expand our skill set by adopting these technologies that allow us to target documentation to user needs.
Whittemore, Stewart. Technical Communication Online (2003). Design>Documentation>Online
#26468
Desktop Printing with QuarkXPress
Have you ever wondered why, no matter how much time you spend trying to find an option for it in QuarkXPress, you just cannot get that picture to print the way you want it? Be happy, or may be not, because it is not that you are overlooking the right options in the program. The option just does not exist in all versions of QuarkXPress prior to version 6.
Bruno, Elisabetta. About.com. Design>Document Design>Software>QuarkXPress
#21884
A directory of websites about desktop publishing, fonts, services and software.
#23143
Desktop Publishing and Design: Took, Tips and Techniques 
The organization of your document in combination with its typographic and graphic elements comprise its design. Good design improves your document's ability to communicate effectively. Novice document designers will want to attend this workshop to learn how to use design to their advantage.
Tucker, Kimberly and Lisa Burke-Marose. STC Proceedings (1996). Design>Document Design>Typography
#24676
Whatever the subject of lists I follow, two basic questions usually come up about every three months. Usually the person posting the question has to make a decision between: Pagemaker or Quark (and often FrameMaker), or Macintosh or PC.
Haugen, Diane. Document Design (2001). Articles>Document Design>Software
#22793
Developing a Document Planning Template
Explains how a document planning template can establish consensus among team members regarding content and layout.
Tremmel, Martina A. Intercom (2004). Articles>Document Design>Document Design>Collaboration
#19254
Developing a Single-Sourced Online Help System
The definition of single sourcing continues to broaden in scope since its first mention in The Society of Technical Communication’s 46th Annual Conference publication. As a result, it is becoming increasingly difficult for technical communicators to understand what single source means and, more importantly, choose a definition of single sourcing that correlates with their specific task. One “type” of single sourcing involves reusing information for multiple products. Several developers at IBM have produced a single-source online help system. Unlike other single-sourcing methods that require a significant investment and a high degree of technical experience, these methods are inexpensive and require a moderate, yet creative, technical aptitude.
Vicek, Keith, Phil Menzies and Andre Evans. STC Proceedings (2002). Design>Documentation>Single Sourcing>Online
#18272
Developing an Embedded Help Solution
As we grow up, we learn to develop our independence and to ask for help less and less. No wonder that, when confronted with a problem, so few users click the Help button. Standard help systems have several common issues: help is separate from the product; users have to leave the task they are performing to get help, and they return and try to remember what they were doing; users cannot find the required information; users get lost in the help.
Mueller, Paul. Technical Communication Online (2003). Design>Documentation>Help
#18834
Developing an Information Strategy
The role of the technical communicator has been changing dramatically over the past few years. Gone are the days when hefty user manuals are considered desirable. Technical communicators must now think of ways of building intuitiveness into products to obviate the need for reams and reams of hard copy documentation. This understanding forms the basis for developing an information strategy.
Florsheim, Stewart J. STC Proceedings (1997). Design>Documentation>Information Design>Content Strategy
#14677
Developing Help for the Web: Designs, Trends, Strategies
Zubak reviews the current state of Web-based help technology. Her article prepares technical communicators for upcoming challenges in this increasingly important field.
Zubak, Cheryl Lockett. Intercom (2001). Design>Documentation>Help
#14777
Differentiating Online Help from Printed Documentation
Hemmi discusses the differences between online help and printed documentation and suggests how technical communicators can make the most of both media.
Hemmi, Jane A. Intercom (2002). Design>Documentation
#13582
Each year we like to highlight some of the outstanding print publication samples we've seen and ask ourselves is there opportunity for a do-it-yourself project.
Showker, Fred. Design, Typography and Graphics (2002). Design>Document Design>Marketing
#20411
Setting type means selecting and arranging groups of characters, but not all of those characters have to be part of the alphabet. Dingbats are non-typographic elements that can enhance your work by adding variety and functionality.
Strizver, Ilene. Upper and lowercase Magazine (2003). Design>Typography>Document Design
#22780
Can somebody explain what the process of distilling is -- in simple terms?
#27456
This presentation addresses a low-effort-required solution for users looking to take a step into XML for their technical documentation. The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) and its associated public toolkit provide you with the DTDs, stylesheets and other tools you require to make your steps into XML.
Kravogel, Christian and Boris Horner. IDEAlliance (2005). Articles>Document Design>XML>DITA
#29770
Technical writers make distinctions between the types of documents they create: user guides, reference manuals, tutorials. But do users really understand these document types? How do users look for different kinds of information--and how do we, as technical writers, make it clear to them what types of information are available? This paper presents results of usability evaluations of documentation for electronic design automation software, showing how a writing team tried to improve the categorization and presentation of document types.
Heninger, Barbara L. and Michael J. Miller. STC Proceedings (2004). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design>Genre
#23289
Do Your Manuals Put Children in Danger? A Survey of Juvenile Products Consumers
What can manufacturers do to improve the readability of manuals that accompany juvenile products?
Manual Labour (2003). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design>Children
#31582
This blog discusses documents and information designs “in the wild" - especially those that are exceptionally good or exceptionally bad.
Doc or Die. Resources>Documentation>Information Design>Blogs
#23532
This course provides technical communicators with a practical and theoretical overview of document design. We will begin with examinations of document design theories and conventions coming from graphic artists, usability experts, cognitive psychologists, and technical communication scholars, and then critique those theories and conventions as we apply them to the analysis and creation of technical documents. In the process, we will problematize modernist expediency and question long-held assumptions.
Clark, Dave. University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (2003). Academic>Courses>Document Design
#14565
This course will teach you to * identify and discuss principles of reading comprehension, cognitive psychology, human factors, and graphic design that apply to technical documents * analyze and evaluate the design of existing documents and recommend appropriate revisions * design and test documents for maximum usability
Dragga, Sam. Texas Tech University (2002). Academic>Courses>Document Design>Visual Rhetoric
#22878
Document Design: A Brief Primer
Today's documentation must be designed with information retrieval as its key objective. When information is organized and mapped into a consistent, logical structure that uses retrievability aids such as labels that facilitate scanning, blocks of information, advance organizers for the information, keywords, meaningful indexes, and a hierarchical organization, readers can quickly locate and use the information that they need.
Flanders, Melanie G. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>Documentation>Document Design>User Centered Design
#31628
Document Engineering and Information Architecture
This course introduces the discipline of Document Engineering: specifying, designing, and deploying electronic documents and information repositories that enable document-centric or information-intensive applications. These applications include web services, information supply chains, single-source publishing, composite applications/virtual enterprises/portals, and so on. Course topics include developing requirements, analyzing existing documents and information sources, conceptual modeling, identifying reusable semantic components, modeling business processes and user interactions, applying patterns to make models more robust, representing models using XML schemas, and using XML models to implement and drive applications. The syllabus contains over 20 short case study examples from different industries, with special emphasis on business-to-business, healthcare and medical informatics, and e-government.
Glushko, Robert J. University of California Berkeley (2008). Academic>Courses>Document Design>Information Design
#31581
Document Engineering in User Experience Design
Document engineering is a methodology for specifying, designing, and deploying the information models and repositories that enable document-centric applications, and a synthesis of information and systems analysis, business process modeling, electronic publishing, and service-oriented architecture.
Glushko, Robert J. University of California Berkeley (2008). Articles>Document Design>User Experience
#24990
FrameMaker is the industry standard for writing book-length documents. It is a powerful program capable of creating books of well over a thousand pages. The learning curve for the program is significant. FrameMaker is a much different animal than Microsoft Word and other word processors.
Hewitt, John. Writer's Resource Center (2004). Articles>Document Design>Software>Adobe FrameMaker
