#23216
Visual Vocabulary Three Years Later: An Interview with Jesse James Garrett
This interview focuses on Jesse James Garret's Visual Vocabulary, a site architecture documentation standard.
Brown, Dan. Boxes and Arrows (2003). Design>Documentation>Information Design>Web Design
#31431
Visuals and Specialization Present Possibilities for Handling the Information Overload Crisis
Professional communicators and attorneys have long stood side by side as both fought to win in court—one in the court of law, the other in the court of public opinion. These two sometimes wary compatriots, however, are now beginning to partner more frequently to garner the best results for the executive suite.
Larkin, T.J. and Sandar Larkin. Communication World Bulletin (2005). Articles>Document Design>Visual Rhetoric>Charts and Graphs
#31151
Mit dieser Technik steht Ihnen eine einfache Methode zur Verfügung, Webseiten oder einzelne Bereiche eines Webs downzuloaden und als PDF zu speichern.
TECOM (2003). (German) Articles>Document Design>Software>Adobe Acrobat
#15224
WebWorks Publisher: Can It Convert You? 
Discusses Quadralay's WebWorks Publisher, a software package that allows single-sourcing from Adobe FrameMaker to online documents. For a more advanced discussion of WebWorks, see Robert R. Desprez's article 'WebWorks Publisher: Jumping into the Details,' also in the September/October 2001 issue of Intercom.
Beren, Wendy G. Intercom (2001). Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe FrameMaker
#23288
What Do Manuals Say About Your Company?
According to the Consumer Electronics Association, product returns represent a $10 billion-dollar-a-year problem for the consumer electronics industry. Technical support costs are spiraling (even with the migration to off-shore providers) while consumer satisfaction with this support is plummeting. New technology and expanded offerings to a stabilized market are increasing competition. What can manufacturers do to help combat these problems? Better consumer manuals are a start.
Manual Labour (2003). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design
#18837
What We Can Learn About Document Design From A Study of the Visual Convergence of the News Media
Information presentation trends that traverse media boundaries point to a visual convergence among print, television, and the web. Examination of how this process takes place through “remediation” in the news media provides insight into the broader media and cultural context in which technical documentation resides. Creating new knowledge for technical communicators who are beyond an elementary understanding of document design requires interdisciplinary research that investigates how usability is redefined in an age of visual convergence.
Cooke, Lynne. STC Proceedings (2002). Articles>Document Design>Visual Rhetoric
#18882
All text is digital in origin. Fixed print has become printout, one substrate of expression for a preexisting digital code. And it is no longer the only game in town. Other, digital, displays–--regular cathode ray tube computer screens, liquid crystal display flat screens, book-sized electronic display devices, digital screen projectors, heads-up displays, goggles, helmets, immersive virtual reality environments–--now compete with the printed page for final display. These digital displays can recreate the full electronic expressive space, a three-dimensional, dynamic world, as the flat, fixed world of print cannot. Fixity stands at the center of Beatrice Warde's brave declaration: 'not to perish on waves of sound, not to vary with the writer's hand, but fixed in time.' That fixity comes unglued in the diversity of display devices in which text can now become manifest. Text will find its future as the various ways we can now display it compete for the privilege.
Lanham, Richard A. Education Communication and Information (2003). Design>Document Design>Online
#25155
Color expert Mike Davis of Colorprep knows what to do when color goes wrong... and many times it's the photographer or designer's fault!
Davis, Mike. Design, Typography and Graphics (2004). Design>Document Design>Prepress>Color
#30315
When Products Become Easy to Use, What's Next for Writers?
People who follow the right trends will someday lead them. Such an opportunity now lies in the hands of technical writers, as the computer field moves toward standardized, graphical, easy-to-use interfaces.
Oram, Andrew. Boston Broadside (1991). Articles>Usability>User Centered Design>Documentation
#10341
Where Is the Instruction in Online Help Systems? 
One of the ironic things about online help systems is that they are very often not helpful and even increase the user's frustration and stress level. This increased frustration sometimes results in the rejection of the software. One solution is to increase the effectiveness of online help systems by designing them from an instructional design perspective. Some of the things we can provide users include: imperative, task-focused procedures; graphic feedback; access to redundant instructions; links to tutorial practice; philosophical and conceptual explanations for 'why' they are completing specific tasks.
Pratt, Jean A. Technical Communication Online (1998). Articles>Documentation>Instructional Design>Online
#14352
Where is the Instruction in Online Help? Designing it Right the First Time
One of the ironic things about online help systems is that they are very often not helpful and even increase the user's frustration and stress level. A consequence of this increased frustration sometimes results in the rejection of the software. One solution is to increase the effectiveness of online help systems by designing them from an instructional design perspective. Some of the things we can provide users include: imperative, task-focused procedures; graphic feedback; access to redundant instructions; links to tutorial practice; philosophical and conceptual explanations for “why” they are completing specific tasks.
Pratt, Jean A. STC Proceedings (1997). Presentations>Documentation>Instructional Design>Help
#28713
Sometimes, as in web design, it's difficult to add whitespace because of content requirements. Newspapers often deal with this by setting their body content in a light typeface with plenty of whitespace within and around the characters.
Boulton, Mark. List Apart, A (2007). Design>Web Design>Document Design
#31235
As business communicators, our goal is typically to influence opinion or change behavior in order to achieve business objectives. To accomplish this, we must get people to interact with our message. A page of 12-point Times New Roman text is seldom compelling, so what you are left with to persuade people to read your publication is graphic design.
Canfield, Jocelyn. Communication World Bulletin (2007). Design>Document Design>Typography>Visual Rhetoric
#27240
Why Do All the Page Numbers in my Word 2002 Document Display as 0?
Word 2002 will display 0 for all page numbers in headers or footers, and all page numbers in a Table of Contents, in the following circumstances.
Kelly, Shauna. Word MVP Site, The (2002). Articles>Word Processing>Document Design>Microsoft Word
#27235
Why Does the Appearance (or Layout) of My Document Change When I Open it on a Different Machine?
Because Word is a WYSIWYG application, it will always try to represent on screen the result you will get if you print on the printer that is selected as the default. Changing printer drivers will almost always change the layout at least slightly and sometimes radically. There are a number of ways to minimize the changes.
Barnhill, Suzanne. Word MVP Site, The (2002). Articles>Word Processing>Document Design>Microsoft Word
#25076
Why Game Documentation is Essential to a Satisfying User Experience
Documentation and information organization are an integral part of video game construction. The video game industry may be one of the directions technical communicators will move toward in the near future.
Peterson, Martin. Usability Interface (2004). Articles>Documentation>User Experience>User Centered Design
#11801
Why Technical Communicators and Usability?
Why technical communicators and usability? Both writers and software development managers have asked me that question. In both cases, it springs from a narrow view of communicators as 'just writers.' It is a point of view that fails to see the many activities, from learning the subject matter to organizing the information or creating good document design, that are hidden behind that final task of writing the words.
Quesenbery, Whitney. STC Usability SIG (2000). Articles>TC>Document Design>Usability
#12979
WidemanOne Adobe FrameMaker Topics
For all that the most central concept in FrameMaker is the Frame, the existing documentation is thoroughly foggy regarding the precise nature of the Frame types and the relationships amongst them. Here is a first pass at rectifying that shortcoming.
Wideman, Graham. WidemanOne (2001). Resources>Software>Document Design>Adobe FrameMaker
#20408
When setting type, most of us are very conscious of type style, size, width and line spacing. Many of us also pay attention to letter spacing and kerning, even if we’re not as confident in these areas. But word spacing--the space between words--is probably the most neglected of typographic attributes. This seemingly small detail plays an important role in the color, texture and readability of your type.
Strizver, Ilene. Upper and lowercase Magazine (2003). Design>Typography>Document Design
#28061
Word Spacing Keyboard Shortcut 
Ever been copyfitting and wished there was a quick way to kern word spacing but leave letterspacing alone? There is.
Cole, Tim. Adobe Evangelists (2006). Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe InDesign
#14417
Word-to-RoboHelp Conversion Tips and Tricks
Whether you’re converting an existing Microsoft Word document to a WinHelp format using RoboHelp, or to an HTML-based Help format using RoboHelp HTML, RoboHelp Office 9 lets you add a Word document to your Help project with a single mouse click. But don’t do it, at least not until you’ve reviewed, tweaked, and massaged the document to make the most of the new medium for your documentation and to avoid problems that commonly surface following conversion Here are some tips for an (almost) error-free conversion.
Carlson, Janice L. WilliamRice.com (2001). (Chinese) Design>Documentation>Software>Adobe RoboHelp
#25495
Working with Colour in InDesign CS
Explains the use of the Colour Palette and Swatches palette and how they relate to each other. It also briefly covers the Gradient Palette. Informative links explaining the difference between RGB, CMYK, hues, tints, etc. are also provided.
Bruno, Elisabetta. About.com. Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe InDesign
#22355
Working With Graphics in Adobe InDesign CS
In this topic, you will place graphics on the page and then move, resize and crop them.
#25437
Download label templates, in Word or PDF format. CD, DVD, shipping, book, and many other blank label templates for designing your own labels.
Worldlabel.com (1998). Design>Document Design>Prepress
#30622
Write Once, Use Many: Why and How We Make Product Information Modular
Faced with growing demand from customers for specific courses, addressing only their needs, in very short time-frames, we had to re-examine the way we worked. Patching together one-shot customized coursework was labor-intensive for a non-homogeneous and unsatisfactory result. Each new customer request required repetition of the same amount of effort. With reduced turnaround time and dwindling human resources, a solution had to be found.
McClelland, Patricia J. and Alison Bourdel. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Documentation>Information Design>User Centered Design
