Extreme documentation is an agile methodology for developing documentation in small to medium-sized teams in the face of vague or rapidly changing requirements.
#19836
Policies and Procedures 1995 PIC Meeting 
This session is intended for those interested in (a) policies and procedures as a subject, (b) networking with others concerned with policies and procedures, (c) learning about this PIC, (d) influencing the direction of this PIC, or (e) listening, commenting, or volunteering. The first portion of the meeting will briefly review the PIC's history, mission, membership, budget, teams, goals, and progress. The second portion will be open to discuss new business.
Urgo, Raymond E. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Documentation>Policies and Procedures
#29622
A Process Model For Creating Accessible End-User Documents
Electronic information products can be made accessible to blind and low-vision individuals. This is easier to accomplish with thorough planning and execution. This paper describes a five-step model for creating accessible documentation. The steps are (1) Preparing a source file (2) Producing accessible output, (3) Testing output for accessibility, (4) Modifying a source file if needed, and (5) Modifying a production process if absolutely necessary.
Herring, Richard D. STC Proceedings (2005). Articles>Documentation>Writing>Technical Writing
#28774
Accelerated Authoring @ Method M
The Method M blog for technical writers, marketing staff, product managers and others who spend hours each week creating documents. This blog is dedicated to helping you work more efficiently and create better documents.
Reichman, Katriel. Method M (2007). Resources>Documentation>Technical Writing>Blogs
#30382
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
#19901
Achieving Success with Intranet-Based Online Documentation 
To key to achieving a successful online documentation implementation on the intranet is to understand that the resulting system is indeed a 'system.' The need for well-written, formatted and structured documents is necessary but the interactive framework in which those documents exist is equally important. It is crucial to understand the role of each individual involved in the system from Reader to Author and I.T. provider.
Frost, Edward D.J. STC Proceedings (2001). Design>Documentation>Intranets>Web Design
#10178
ACM SIGDOC (Special Interest Group on Design of Communication) 
The ACM Special Interest Group on documentation provides a forum on documentation and user support for computer products and systems. The SIG studies processes, methods, and technologies for communicating information via printed and online text, hypermedia, and multimedia. Members include technical communication professionals, educators, and researchers, as well as system designers, developers, usability specialists, and managers responsible for producing or supervising the creation of documentation, online help systems, and end user interfaces. SIGDOC offers conferences, a high-quality Web site, and The Journal of Computer Documentation, a respected quarterly publication.
#26222
Adapting Traditional Editing Practices for Online Documentation
Developing a process and using guidelines for editing online documents, both rooted in traditional editing practices.
Fink, Bonnie L., Carol E. Gasser, Jennifer L. Giordano and Beth A. Williams. STC Orange County (1998). Presentations>Documentation>Editing
#20272
Adapting Traditional Editing Practices for Online Documentation
Technical editors are possibly best known for their abilities to transform information with format, content, grammatical, and mechanical problems into coherent, concise, understandable, and usable documents. Editors must not only provide such services for the information authors, but they must also understand and support users' needs and expectations. This presentation gives editors an approach to editing online documentation that is rooted in traditional editing practices.
Fink, Bonnie L., Carol Gasser, Jennifer Giordano and Beth A. Williams. STC Proceedings (1998). Articles>Editing>Documentation>Online
#24121
Add One Egg, a Cup of Milk, and Stir: Single Source Documentation for Today
What happens when the software firm you work for decides it will not deliver large printed manuals any more? Then the request comes to put everything online. Six months later, user profiles shift to the World Wide Web and you're asked to deliver HTML. In the future, a database of SGML information chunks may let us deliver anything, any which way. Today, we must devise a system that allows us to 'author once, publish many'. Such as system is crucial for software and hardware documentation. The method I chose was to go from FrameMaker to Acrobat .pdf files to HTML. I wrote in Adobe FrameMaker, then converted to .pdf files with Adobe Acrobat, and converted FrameMaker to HTML files with Quadralay WebWorks Publisher. But while we're waiting for the future, just learning SGML and diving deep into DTDs alone could be a mistake. SGML is a language which sets out structure, and most of us are concerned with content. Enter Information Mapping, or information types of your own devising. Identifying chunks of information such as a procedure for changing the default printer is extremely important. If we then mark each chunk for an index and record its type and title, we've also got the keywords for a future database.
Stieren, Carl. Simware (1997). Articles>Documentation>Single Sourcing>Adobe FrameMaker
#20548
Adding Life to Your Documentation
Suggests several techniques technical writers can use to enliven their writing and improve their documentation.
Potsus, Whitney Beth. Intercom (2003). Articles>Documentation>Writing>Technical Writing
#13775
Adding User Annotations to Help Topics
This article discusses a feature called User Annotations, whereby users can add their own custom notes to Help topics, and presents a method for implementing it in web pages or in HTML Help topics.
Gash, Dave. WritersUA (2002). Design>Documentation
#29368
Adjust Your Documentation Plan for .NET 
Developing in the .NET environment requires internal documentation changes. Learn how to adjust your documentation plan so that it encompasses additional elements, such as the needs of mobile users.
Kelly, William T. TechRepublic (2003). Articles>Documentation>Server Side Includes
#20273
Adobe Acrobat: Publishing Online Documentation
Documentation departments are often faced with the challenge of quickly distributing high-quality versions of printed documentation via the company Intranet, the World Wide Web, or CD-ROM. Adobe Acrobat is a simple, cost-effective way to publish documentation for a variety of media and requires little time or technical expertise to produce professional-looking results. Technical writers and web developers can easily use Adobe Acrobat to create portable document format (PDF) files from printed documentation. They can then add links and bookmarks, create an index, produce simple interactive forms, and add multimedia components to their documents.
Ogata, Kerry L. and Thomas A. Witherspoon. STC Proceedings (1998). Articles>Documentation>Online>Adobe Acrobat
#30404
Adobe Creative Suite 3 Video Workshop
You can use the Adobe Creative Suite 3 Video Workshop to start learning about any application you're interested in, whether you own it or not. The Video Workshop shares expertise from across Adobe and the Adobe community--you'll learn tasks, tips, and tricks from leading designers, developers, and Adobe experts. There are introductory videos for new users, and more experienced users can find videos on new features and key techniques.
Adobe (2007). Resources>Documentation>Multimedia>Video
#27076
Adobe Systems Speaks Out on DITA: Internal Use of FrameMaker, CMS, and DITA
Asks Puny Sen, Project Lead, Instructional Communications at Adobe Systems to talk about the software giant's foray into the world of the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA). Sen shares details about Adobe's recent DITA documentation project, the pro's and con's of using DITA with FrameMaker, as well as lessons learned of importance to anyone interested in adopting the DITA standard.
Ethier, Kay and Scott Abel. Bright Path Solutions (2005). Articles>Documentation>XML>DITA
#23406
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
#31845
How do you best assist users whose learning styles are more visual than verbal? Tietjen discusses the benefits and the how-to of screencasting, a mixture of visuals, audio, and complementary text.
Tietjen, Phil. Intercom (2008). Articles>Documentation>Multimedia>Screen Captures
#23411
AECMA 1000D - Goal and Reality
The contribution deals with the transposition of projects on the basis of the AECMA-1000D-specification. The author explains problems which exist outside aeronautics with the application of this specification.
Just, Stefan. TC-FORUM (2001). Articles>Documentation>Standards
#30762
Agile Documentation (Using Tests as Documentation)
Storytelling can make documentation more exciting for both writers and readers. Stories provide context and people tend to remember them. More all-∆around fun when stories are tests.
Gheorghiu, Grig. Business Information Review. Articles>Documentation>Agile>Testing
#28121
Agile Documentation with doctest and epydoc
A Test Map is a list of unit tests associated with a specific function/method under test. It helps you see how that specific function/method is being exercised via unit tests.
Gheorghiu, Grig. Blogspot (2005). Articles>Documentation>Agile
#27589
In Agile Documentation, Rüping gets to the heart of the documentation dilemma, offering a two-word solution: minimum necessary.
Davis, Donna L. developer.star (2003). Articles>Reviews>Agile>Documentation
#27588
Agile Documentation: Strategies for Agile Software Development
When I initially started work on Agile Modeling (AM) I wanted to focus solely on principles and practices for effective modeling but quickly discovered that this scope was not sufficient, that I also needed to consider the issue of how to be effective at the creation and maintenance of documentation too. Some agile models will 'evolve' into official system documentation, although the vast majority will not, and therefore it is relevant to discuss how to be agile doing so.
Agile Modeling. Articles>Documentation>Agile>Extreme Documentation
#31163
An Agile Review Process for Technical Documentation
Documentation teams need a fast and effective review process to move forward on their projects and deliver quality, timely content. Reviewers, may they be SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) or key organization authorities, are usually extremely busy and have limited time (or interest) to review documentation. Interesting dilemma, no?
Talbot, Fabrice. LiveTechDocs (2008). Articles>Documentation>Agile>Workflow
#30772
Madcap Flare is one of the most powerful online help authoring tools on the market today. In this podcast, Paul Pehrson, MVP in the Madcap Software forums, talks about Madcap Flare in depth.
Pehrson, Paul and Tom H. Johnson. Tech Writer Voices (2008). Articles>Documentation>Software>Madcap Flare
#27601
Why do we bother with models or documentation? They don't execute, and our customers pay us for working code, not pretty pictures. We bother with models to communicate. The idea is that a graphical object model can show how objects fit together more clearly than looking at the source, an interaction diagram can show a collaboration better than figuring out the call path from several class definitions. But so often the design documentation fails in this, and leaves me puzzled on my sofa.
Fowler, Martin. MartinFowler.com (1997). Articles>Documentation>Agile>Extreme Documentation
