#29395
Two Approaches to Modularity: Comparing the STOP Approach with Structured Writing 
The first time I heard of the STOP paper was sometime in the mid 80's when the historian of technical writing, John Brockman, phoned me to ask if my Information Mapping method of structured writing derived from the STOP method. At the time I told Brockman that there was no direct relationship between our two approaches since I'd never read the paper. When the editor of this journal sent me the STOP document in preparation for writing this paper, I read it with delight. Although our two innovations date from the same period, the STOP authors and I were working in two completely different disciplines, cultures, organizations, and locations. These two approaches resulted in modularity - albeit of quite different kinds. The main purpose of this project is to compare and contrast these two approaches to modularity. I should note here that I approach this article principally as an exercise in historical comparison, rather than as an exposition of my current views, about which I will say a bit at the end of this article.
Horn, Robert E. Journal of Computer Documentation (1999). Articles>Information Design>Technical Writing>History
#29160
Two Centuries of Progress in Technical Communication 
A common aphorism in the halls of education is that the writing skills of Americans decline over time. Compared to the "golden age of letters," so the argument goes, each subsequent generation of writers is worse than the last. Although contemporary readers and educators commiserate over encounters with bad writing, a fair comparison of 18th century American exemplars to modern American exemplars reveals a significant advance in clarity, an advance that technical communicators can be proud of. To demonstrate the advances in expository writing over the past two centuries, the author compares what the authors of the U.S. Constitution did with their limited resources to what modern professional communicators do with their abundance of resources. Many of the communication problems that were pervasive when the U.S. Constitution was created have since been remedied by insights emerging from the fields of linguistics, human factors, and cognitive psychology, among others.
Connatser, Bradford R. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2007). Articles>TC>History>United States
#29479
Typography and Page Layout: The Printers' Point System
In the year 1898 the English typefounders, as a body, adopted a system (which had been in use in America since 1878) of casting their types to a certain fixed standard. That standard was the American pica, 83 of which equalled 35 centimetres. The pica, which measured 4.21mm, was divided into 12 equal parts called 'points', which makes the size of a point approximately 0.35 mm.
Magnik, John. Typography First. Design>Document Design>Typography>History
#29800
This article considers various notions of 'beauty' and how these have informed the creative and critical processes of graphic design, specifically typography. The author considers how the Renaissance revival of Greek mathematics to support a 'universal beauty' was gradually unpicked by Enlightenment thinkers such as Descartes, Kant and Hume, and how this process has subsequently shaped modernist and postmodernist attitudes towards 'beauty'. From our current vantage point it could be argued that 'beauty' should now be considered a redundant concept; however, design schools and studios continue to make value judgments dividing the 'beautiful' from the 'ugly'. On what basis are these judgements made and are they still valid in a pluralistic society? Is it possible that we now have a new sensibility, a different notion of beauty? Reflecting upon important questions raised by the American designer and writer Steven Heller in his controversial essay 'The Cult of the Ugly' in _Eye_ magazine in 1993, the author proposes that 14 years on from the article, we can indeed witness a new aesthetic sensibility, shared but not universal, rooted in loss yet also 'found'.
Rigley, Steve. Visual Communication (2007). Articles>Graphic Design>Typography>History
#29071
Understanding Statistical Significance: A Conceptual History
Few concepts in the social sciences have wielded more discriminatory power over the status of knowledge claims than that of statistical significance. Currently operationalized as a = 0.05, statistical significance frequently separates publishable from nonpublishable research, renewable from nonrenewable grants, and, in the eyes of many, experimental success from failure. If literacy is envisioned as a sort of competence in a set of social and intellectual practices, then scientific literacy must encompass the realization that this cardinal arbiter of social scientific knowledge was not born out of an immanent logic of mathematics but socially constructed and reconstructed in response to sociohistoric conditions.
Little, Joseph. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2001). Articles>Research>Statistics>History
#25086
Undoing the Industrial Revolution
The last 200 years have driven centralization and changed the human experience in ways that conflict with evolution. The Internet will reestablish a more balanced, decentralized lifestyle.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2004). Articles>Information Design>History
#29702
Usability Testing Then, Now and Tomorrow
What is current practice in usability testing? How has it changed? What is essential for a good test and what is optional? We compare typical usability testing practice in the past (10+ years ago) with what we find is typical today. Then we look forward to predict what may happen in the future. We predict trends towards testing as a purchasable commodity, more remote testing, as technology makes it easier to ‘observe’ users over the Internet and more ‘mass market’ testing as businesses like Amazon try out their design ideas by micro-launching variants of their web site to see which one plays best with their customers.
Jarrett, Caroline, Dana E. Chisnell and Jeff Johnson. STC Proceedings (2005). Articles>Usability>Testing>History
#29117
Using the Internet as a Tool for Public Service: Creating a Community History Web Site
Creating a community history Web site is a way for technical communication practitioners, students, and teachers to improve their expertise while performing a valuable public service. Developers of this kind of Web site combine personal interest in the history and culture of their chosen communities with professional interest in a wide range of skills: for example, online research, Web site design, creation of artwork, photography, graphics editing, collaboration, professional/technical writing, as well as site publication and promotion. Technical communicators working on community history Web sites enjoy creative freedom that makes these projects especially engaging and fun. While learning about subjects of particular interest and improving professional skills, developers gain the satisfaction of trying to help communities increase civic pride and heritage tourism. Also, the technical communication profession benefits when its members demonstrate good citizenship to employers, other constituencies, and the public.
Henson, Darold Leigh. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2005). Articles>Web Design>Community Building>History
#29046
Visual Texts: Format and the Evolution of English Accounting Texts, 1100-1700
Emphasis on page design, as an aid to visual accessibility, did not receive attention in modern technical writing until the 1970s. However, accounting documents and instructional texts utilized format and document design strategies as early as the twelfth century to enhance the organization of quantitative data and linear bookkeeping entries. Format in text was used to reflect the arrangement used in oral accounting practices and to produce uniform documents. Thus, format was integral to the rise of pragmatic literacy of the commercial reader. During the Renaissance, these early format strategies received impetus from Ramist method. The result was design strategies that attempted to capture the rigid principles of organization fundamental to commercial accounting. These early accounting documents also illustrate the plain style that would become the focus of the later decades of the seventeenth century. Clarity in language paralleled clarity in page design for the sole purpose of eliminating ambiguity on the page and on the sentence level. Plain style was thus nurtured by financial forces long before the advent of natural science.
Tebeaux, Elizabeth. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2000). Articles>Document Design>Visual Rhetoric>History
#21639
El siglo XX ha visto muchos avances en campos diversos. La Visualización no ha sido una excepción a esos cambios, que prepararon el camino para su transformación en 'Visualización de Información' durante las dos décadas que precedieron al nuevo milenio.
Dursteler, Juan Carlos. InfoVis (2003). Articles>History>Visual Rhetoric
#13925
The first books and the first technical books published by English women during the 1475-1700 period can be useful in teaching students about the emergence of technical style or 'plain style.' If we examine the style of these women writers, long ignored by canonical studies, we can see that plain English existed before Bacon and received its impetus not from science, but from the utilitarian attitude that pervaded the 1475-1700 period. These women writers provide a microcosm for studying the rise of modern English prose and what we now call technical (or plain) style. They also provide an efficient way to expose students to early published works by women and their contribution to the history of technical writing. Examining style from such a perspective helps students see that technical communication was a prevalent kind of writing before Bacon and the Royal Society. Thus, technical communication--and the style of technical communication--studied from this unique historical perspective deepens students' awareness of the roots of technical communication as it contributed to the history of English discourse.
Tebeaux, Elizabeth. Technical Communication Quarterly (1998). Articles>History>TC>Gender
#21848
A (detailed) peek into the brave new - and nostalgic old - days of typesetting, through the eyes of an InDesign insider.
Kvern, Olav Martin. Adobe Magazine (1999). Design>Typography>History
#25556
It's been shown that the distribution of links on the web scales according to a power law, so it comes as no surprise that the distribution of links to weblogs does as well.
Kottke, Jason. kottke.org (2003). Articles>Web Design>History>Blogging
#25551
Weblogs: A History and Perspective
Rebecca Blood, an early blogger, describes the rise of blogging.
Blood, Rebecca. Adobe (2005). Articles>Web Design>History>Blogging
#30730
A study of how three historical rhetorical concepts (kairos, memoria, and mestiza consciousness) are relevant to professional communication practices today, and productive historical concepts for contemporary practitioners.
Haas, Angela. Michigan State University (2004). Articles>Rhetoric>History>Technical Writing
#29058
Women's Technologies, Women's Literacies: Sewing and Computing Across the Years
This article compares the historical and contemporary clothing industry with the current microelectronics industry. It argues that the development of paper patterns, along with the perfection of the sewing machine as a technology in the 1870s, democratized fashion for lower and middle class women just as the development of the World Wide Web and Web-making software has democratized publishing for authors before unable to gain access to an audience for their writing. Comparing the businesses of three groups of women using the World Wide Web, this article finally problematizes these historical and contemporary democratizing technologies the sewing machine and the computer by pointing out both obvious and more subtle socioeconomic realities which undercut some utopian promises of publishing in Cyberspace.
Rohan, Liz. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2001). Articles>Computing>History>Gender
#19014
Ted Nelsons Xanadu system tog sin begyndelse omkring 1960, som et universitetsprojekt. I Xanadu er der tale om hypertext, som igen vil henvise til hyperlinks. Men i Xanadu systemet kan man rent faktisk godt tale om en kæde (læs; Links).
Quark, The (2002). (Danish) Design>Web Design>History
#14616
Humor about the last time a milennium hadn't been planned for.
Gagliardi, Charles. Intercom (2000). Humor>TC>History
#32114
Every subject, from dentistry to dog handling has its own vocabulary — terms that are peculiar (unique) to it. Typography is no exception. Learning the lingua franca (lingo) of type will make typography that much more accessible; and that will, in turn, lead to greater understanding, and hopefully a greater appreciation for all things 'type.'
I Love Typography (2008). Design>Typography>History
#32170
Theories of the Middle Range in Historical Studies of Writing Practice
Recent historical examinations of nonliterary, nontheoretical texts within their activity settings have aimed to identify the historically developed communicative and rhetorical resources currently available to writers and to reveal the dynamics of the formation,use,and evolution of those resources. These studies, in examining communal literate practices, combine theoretical, empirical, and practical concerns by building theories of the middle range. This methodological article elaborates how theories of the middle range can guide research through identifying interrelated levels of research questions (originating, specifying, and site specific) and identifying strategic research sites. This article further elaborates methods of finding, selecting, and analyzing relevant texts and placing them within appropriate social and historical contexts.
Bazerman, Charles. Written Communication. Articles>Writing>History>Rhetoric
#32197
This year was an active one for the field of technical communication. New tools and technologies made their mark on our profession, while new pressures and business goals began to impact the way we see ourselves, our role in the organization, and our place in the communication spectrum. In this end-of-the-year report, Scott Abel, president of TheContentWrangler.com, takes a look at some of the year's most important developments in the field of technical communication and makes a few predictions of importance to documentation managers for 2007.
Abel, Scott. TechCom Manager (2006). Articles>TC>History
#32301
The Last 50 Years of Knowledge Organization: A Journey Through My Personal Archives
At the time when the Institute of Information Scientists was launched, well established principles of classification, especially faceted classification, provided an excellent springboard for developments in knowledge organization thereafter. The principles of thesaurus construction and use were worked out during the first two decades of the Institute's existence. Up until the end of the 1980s, most practical systems to exploit any of these vocabularies were held on cards, some of them highly ingenious. The subsequent arrival of the desktop computer, soon followed by the growth of networks providing access to an almost unimaginable quantity and variety of resources, has stimulated evolution of the knowledge organization schemes to exploit the technology available. Anecdotes of events and practical applications of controlled vocabularies illustrate this account of developments over the period.
Dextre Clarke, Stella G. Journal of Information Science (2008). Articles>Publishing>Research>History
#32304
Information Policies: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow
This article presents a brief history of the development of ideas about national and organizational information policies, from the first establishment of a UK Ministry of Information in the First World War to the present day. The issues and tensions that have characterized attempts to develop and implement policies on the national and organizational scale are discussed, with particular reference to: the power relations between the parties to them; the relative significance accorded to information technology and information content; the transition from formulating policy to acting on it; and the threats to the survival of those policies that get as far as implementation. In conclusion, the contribution to date of information science to the theory and practice of information policies is assessed, and suggestions are offered on directions for future efforts, in the light of the past of this interesting field.
Orna, Elizabeth. Journal of Information Science (2008). Articles>Information Design>Policies and Procedures>History
#32377
The Thirteen Greatest Error Messages of All Time
They're rarely helpful. Actually, they usually add insult to injury. But what would computing be without 'em? Herewith, a tribute to a baker's dozen of the best (or is that worst?).
McCracken, Harry. Technologizer (2008). Humor>Human Computer Interaction>User Interface>History
#32427
The History of the Internet and the Web, and the Evolution of Web Standards
a brief overview of the creation of the Internet, the World Wide Web, and the "web standards" that this entire series focuses upon. I think it is useful and interesting to understand how we got to where we are, but it will be short enough so you don’t get overwhelmed, and can get into the details nice and quickly.
Francis, Mark Norman. Opera (2008). Articles>Web Design>Standards>History
