categoryallspace2-Information Design http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Information-Design A directory of resources about information design in the field of technical communication. en-us Copyright (c) 2005-08 by the EServer. All rights reserved. tclib-editorial@eserver.org (TC Library Editorial Board) webmaster@eserver.org (Geoffrey Sauer) http://tc.eserver.org/images/newlogo.gif http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Information-Design http://tc.eserver.org/31492.html http://tc.eserver.org/31492.html I am trying to evangelize the 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint. It’s quite simple: a PowerPoint presentation should have ten slides, last no more than twenty minutes, and contain no font smaller than thirty points. While I’m in the venture capital business, this rule is applicable for any presentation to reach agreement: for example, raising capital, making a sale, forming a partnership, etc. http://tc.eserver.org/31443.html http://tc.eserver.org/31443.html Genesys, a system of medical care facilities in central Michigan, has introduced an innovative way to couple emerging mobile communication technology with sophisticated medical care. Recently, the hospital system introduced the use of hand-held wireless personal digital assistants (PDAs) by physicians in its 440-bed system, which is made up of three local hospitals merged into one. http://tc.eserver.org/31357.html http://tc.eserver.org/31357.html Is your company making the move from Information Mapping to DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture)? The author compares and contrasts the two methods and shares insight on how to ease the pain of switching from one to the other. http://tc.eserver.org/31272.html http://tc.eserver.org/31272.html Firms wrestling with unstructured data such as emails and spreadsheets don't see enterprise content management as the answer to their problems. http://tc.eserver.org/31207.html http://tc.eserver.org/31207.html The Body of Knowledge effort is currently being led by a team of experienced industry and academic STC members. This spring, you will be invited to look at the initial outline of a hierarchy of domains, skills, and knowledge levels. This BoK is yours to develop; the start-up team is simply trying to put together a straw site to start the collaborative effort. http://tc.eserver.org/31171.html http://tc.eserver.org/31171.html In this podcast, Marlene Martineau of New Dawn Technologies explains why they adopted DITA, how they adopted it, the benefits they're experiencing, and the reasons why she'll never go back. http://tc.eserver.org/31158.html http://tc.eserver.org/31158.html I went to the Content Management Strategies/DITA North America 2008 conference (put on by CIDM), which took place in Santa Clara last week. While I went to support our co-founder's speech on DocBook versus DITA, I also used this opportunity to catch up with software vendors and single-source users. Here's my top #10 take-away list. http://tc.eserver.org/31159.html http://tc.eserver.org/31159.html Thanks to my Google News Alert service, I recently discovered some on-demand XML Editors supporing DITA. While Salesforce democratized software on-demand in the CRM market, I am still perplexed on the future of on-demand pure play software. So let's see first what makes on-demand software, also known as Saas (Software as a Service), so attractive nowadays. I see five compelling reasons. http://tc.eserver.org/31168.html http://tc.eserver.org/31168.html I have recently converted some user documents from MS Word to XML for a medical device company with the intent that they would be looking at authoring their future end-user documentation (printed, embedded, and online) in XML. I want to share with you some of the triumphs and challenges we had met along the way. http://tc.eserver.org/31156.html http://tc.eserver.org/31156.html DocBook and DITA both have their places. They're both excellent for single sourcing. DocBook is better for what I call monolithic single sourcing, while DITA is better suited for discrete single sourcing. http://tc.eserver.org/31157.html http://tc.eserver.org/31157.html If you follow the latest trends or have been to a conference recently, you may find the idea of choosing an XML schema puzzling. Isn't the question really, 'How should I customize DITA to do what I want'? While there are many good reasons to choose DITA, it's not the only schema in town. http://tc.eserver.org/31141.html http://tc.eserver.org/31141.html In all companies, the requirements of an editorial system are worked out individually from the analysis of existing functioning and the definition of editorial and publication processes required in the future. The first important criteria for analysis are change frequencies and degree of reuse of the published information. The description of the information types as well as translation sequences constitute another starting point for the definition of a modular work process (single-source principle) and publication options (cross-media publishing). http://tc.eserver.org/31124.html http://tc.eserver.org/31124.html I have seen a couple of blog postings lately that underscore the statement that DITA is not for everyone or for every situation. http://tc.eserver.org/31127.html http://tc.eserver.org/31127.html We can't force people to look at the work we do, but if we want to make them happy, we need to provide them with the information they need in a manner that makes it easy for the top-down mechanisms to work efficiently. It's our job to help them observe, rather than just see. http://tc.eserver.org/31094.html http://tc.eserver.org/31094.html Jamie Owen explores how we can best utilize cues in our work by understanding how memory, cognitive psychology, and multimedia research affect how information is encoded and retrieved. http://tc.eserver.org/31062.html http://tc.eserver.org/31062.html It is the job of the information architect to discern the internal structure of content and than give it external form to support users in constructing meaning, in relating the content to their own knowledge, needs, and purposes, and thus making sense of the content. http://tc.eserver.org/31063.html http://tc.eserver.org/31063.html Knowledge analysis and representation; information presentation and assimilation; bibliographic and record control. http://tc.eserver.org/31016.html http://tc.eserver.org/31016.html Survey of business information services in corporate information services, based on in-depth interviews with leading business information managers. Key findings are: Business information budgets have been stable, with at least inflationary increases built in; Business conditions have been turbulent of late but this has had no real impact on the services to date; With more information rolled out to the clients' desktops, the services are all working to add value through a variety of approaches, including training, evaluation and analysis, business and client development, and generally undertaking more complex work; Some pressure on the staffing headcount in the services during the year; Recruiting suitable information professionals is a difficult process; Offshoring information and research work has not expanded significantly but more companies are considering this option; 'Techno-centric' knowledge management remains important in some companies, particularly law firms, but is fading as a practice in others; There is great interest and envisaged potential in social technology and Web 2.0 tools and techniques -- but not much serious deployment yet; Even in mature corporate information environments, marketing business information services is still seen as crucial by 90 per cent of respondents; Fifty-five percent of the services provide some kind of competitor information function, albeit not at a high level; A significant majority (75 per cent) of services support compliance functions such as 'Know your client' and anti-money laundering checks; Existing copyright provisions are seen as a barrier to effective information dissemination within companies by 80 per cent of respondents; LexisNexis takes over at the top of the expenditure league; The demand for information on Asian business markets is growing; Almost all services are committed to training users in the discovery and use of digital business information sources; The organization, management, and sometimes realignment of services is the highest strategic priority. http://tc.eserver.org/30889.html http://tc.eserver.org/30889.html The tutorial introduces the reader accustomed to working with the traditional graphic user interface in earlier versions of VB to Windows Presentation Foundation. Importantly, it introduces the reader to the XAML's declarative format and what it means in the design interface of VS 2008. WPF can do a great deal more than what is described in this article. The power of markup extensions such as declarative binding, dynamic resource, template binding and many others are not discussed. It is hoped that the reader will be up and running WPF projects based on his previous experience after reading this article. http://tc.eserver.org/30861.html http://tc.eserver.org/30861.html This study tests the effects of personalized and 'stealth' political discourse on weblogs (or blogs) and the repercussions on levels of political trust, information efficacy and political uses/gratifications. By surveying readers of three different blogs (N=1838), this study identified significant effects as a result of exposure to political statements on blogs. Indeed, there were differences in the levels of political cynicism depending on how political statements were communicated. Readers of non-political blogs were more confident in their level of political information and their ability to participate in politics. Finally, political uses/approaches and avoidances were examined, as were differences based on gender and age. http://tc.eserver.org/30825.html http://tc.eserver.org/30825.html This tutorial shows how SQL Server 2005 can be migrated to SQL Server 2008 quite easily by manually detaching the database from SQL Server 2005 and attaching it to SQL Server 2008. This is a much easier process than the 'Copy Database Wizard' which has two procedures one of which is the same as the manual process but carried out under the guidance of a wizard and the other which does not require the stopping of the Source server. http://tc.eserver.org/30773.html http://tc.eserver.org/30773.html We're moving toward a shared network model, where people publish and subscribe. The really appealing sites integrate feeds for a community of users in an invisible, seamless way, making it easy to see what we're all up to. http://tc.eserver.org/30784.html http://tc.eserver.org/30784.html How do you convert your application-neutral, vendor-neutral, unformatted XML content into paginated content (such as PDF) or HTML? O'Keefe introduces one solution: the Extensible Stylesheet Language, a programming language for processing XML. http://tc.eserver.org/30761.html http://tc.eserver.org/30761.html As this issue of the journal goes to press, the Europe-wide professional bodies representing the Schools of Librarianship and Information Studies (EUCLID -- The European Association for Library and Information Education and Research) and the Library Associations (EBLIDA -- the European Bureau of Library, Information and Documentation Associations) will be meeting together for the rst time since they were both founded some 15 years ago. The meeting is intended to focus on the effects of profound social changes related to digitization, multiculturalism and the growth of the knowledge economy. http://tc.eserver.org/30753.html http://tc.eserver.org/30753.html DocBook is an easy-to-understand and widely used DTD. Dozens of organizations use DocBook for millions of pages of documentation, in various print and online formats, worldwide. http://tc.eserver.org/30685.html http://tc.eserver.org/30685.html Behind all the questions about how to model something is a bigger question: do you model it at all? When is it obvious to structure some content, and when do you just throw it into the 'WYSIWYG pile'? http://tc.eserver.org/30670.html http://tc.eserver.org/30670.html XUL is a surprisingly easy way to build cross-platform browser extensions or even stand-alone applications. Discover how to build powerful, flexible Mozilla browser extensions that go beyond the capabilities of other tools like embedded scripting languages or CGI--because they're built right into the user's browser. http://tc.eserver.org/30673.html http://tc.eserver.org/30673.html Have you ever wanted to bring the technical know-how of developerWorks straight to your workspace or personalized iGoogle, Netvibes, or My Yahoo page? Now you can with developer gizmos. It's the power of syndication at the click of the mouse: no programming, training, or registration required. Add any developerWorks custom feeds, or a developerWorks spaces portlet as a Google Gadget, Netvibes Module, or Yahoo Widget directly to your preferred syndication mashup, keep up with developerWorks feeds on your Apple iPhone, or download a developerWorks Gadget for Google Desktop with the content you select from developerWorks. http://tc.eserver.org/30649.html http://tc.eserver.org/30649.html An image, a caption and the image credit. That can't be hard to get the associations right, can it? Delve into the discussion about markup, semantics and microformats of a seemingly simple issue. http://tc.eserver.org/30622.html http://tc.eserver.org/30622.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/30584.html http://tc.eserver.org/30584.html The inner sanctum of any good piece of writing is a solid, logical core. To produce the logical core, a writer frequently has to synthesize complex information, which means understanding it well enough to transform often muddled and random detail to clear and easy to apprehend expression. Synthesis of new information, being one of the most difficult thinking skills, can require more of a writer than the writer has time for. An editor's job, from the first draft to the last, is to help build the writing around an appropriate logical core. In this workshop, participants will practice techniques that editors can use to make sure that they find, or help the writer find, the core - what users need to know, and the order in which they need to know it. Participants will form groups to scan a document, using a checklist of tips to spot problems in the document's structure. Each group will report its findings to the larger group. http://tc.eserver.org/30496.html http://tc.eserver.org/30496.html Today's information developers are often confused by rapidly evolving technology and overwhelmed by the volumes of information they face each day. Although they might well feel that their mental faculties are taxed to the limit, research in cognitive psychology provides new strategies for coping in today's intellectually demanding environment. The purpose of this workshop is to give information developers insight into their intellectual strengths and to introduce strategies that can help them improve their intellectual performance. http://tc.eserver.org/30503.html http://tc.eserver.org/30503.html Hypertext is a novel approach to computer-based information management based on associative indexing. The concept in general and the characteristics of typical systems are briefly reviewed. Strategies for applying hypertext techniques to the process of writing a technical document are examined. The way in which hypertext documents are used is discussed, focusing on a commonly encountered problem -- user disorientation within the document. Hypertext-based technical documents are compared and contrasted against their paper-based antecedents. http://tc.eserver.org/30468.html http://tc.eserver.org/30468.html JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is a lightweight data-interchange format. It is easy for humans to read and write. It is easy for machines to parse and generate. It is based on a subset of the JavaScript Programming Language, Standard ECMA-262 3rd Edition - December 1999. JSON is a text format that is completely language independent but uses conventions that are familiar to programmers of the C-family of languages, including C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, Perl, Python, and many others. These properties make JSON an ideal data-interchange language. http://tc.eserver.org/30414.html http://tc.eserver.org/30414.html In this progression we will examine ways that technical communicators can improve both information usability and product usability. The presentation will center around two major points. http://tc.eserver.org/30415.html http://tc.eserver.org/30415.html Contextual Inquiry is a field research technique that focuses on interviewing users in their own context as they do actual work. As a basis for effective design, Contextual Inquiry can contribute to the requirements and structure of systems and information. This half-day workshop presents a practical introduction to Contextual Inquiry as a step in designing information that supports and extends users' work. http://tc.eserver.org/30416.html http://tc.eserver.org/30416.html The purpose of this paper is to explore a method that allows information developers to measure the quality assurance being invested in the products they create. A successful project achieves a balance between the time it takes to produce information, the associated cost, and the quality of the end product. http://tc.eserver.org/30367.html http://tc.eserver.org/30367.html Established in 2005, KnowGenesis Online Library for Technical Communication (www.knowgenesis.org/tc) is India's first online repository dedicated to accelerate knowledge sharing and promote self-learning in the field of technical communication. The library is available free of cost and require one time free registration to access the available material. The popularity and success rate of the library can be determined by the fact that within a year of its launch, it not only attracted more than 24000 visitors and gained more than 1500 subscribers, but also increased the volume of the hosted content from few documents to more than 2000 important documents, presentations, tutorials and links. KnowGenesis library presents a unique case for repository designers to study the complex design and implementation process that contributed to the stability and overall success rate of the online library. This paper not only shares the designing and implementation challenges faced by the knowgenesis team, but also presents the approach used to match the user requirements with the library design. Based on the lessons learned during the process, the paper also presents specific set of guidelines and recommends methodologies that can provide critical assistance for developing and managing medium and large scale repositories http://tc.eserver.org/30294.html http://tc.eserver.org/30294.html An interview with the senior manager of Library and Document Services for the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics. http://tc.eserver.org/30295.html http://tc.eserver.org/30295.html Views on various dimensions of the knowledge audit (KA) process, and how organizations can use this tool to achieve organizational objectives. During the discussion, participants analyzed the pre-requisites, advantages, and process of the knowledge audit. This article presents a summarized version of the issues discussed. http://tc.eserver.org/30258.html http://tc.eserver.org/30258.html Organizations today face the challenge of two important enterprise architecture requirements: the need for agility and the overhead of regulatory governance. These requirements can be seen as mutually antagonistic -- if business processes must be flexible, then governance of those processes may be difficult. This article, part six in a six-part series, explores the notion of using manageability as a key enterprise architecture (EA) quality attribute to solve this problem. EA development is an ongoing process, and the central idea of this article is that by applying manageability as an EA attribute, the organizational processes, systems, and software become manageable. http://tc.eserver.org/30231.html http://tc.eserver.org/30231.html Some folks here are taking a very strong look at DITA. I'm certainly one of them. But we also have a huge legacy of documents in Solbook format (Sun's subset of DocBook). There are tools for editing such documents, and tools for processing them. and there are many people who are comfortable with those tools. So DITA isn't going to replace the world, just yet. But DITA makes extensive reuse possible. It's a format with a serious future, because "reuse" is a very big deal. It lets you single-source your information content so have one place to make an edit. That sort of thing becomes important when you have multiple revisions of a product, and/or multiple variations. It becomes important when different tools and different products use the same information in different ways. It can drastically improve quality, ensure uniformity of presentation. Finally, structured formats like DITA and DocBook create the kind of consistently-tagged information that allows for useful automation. http://tc.eserver.org/30228.html http://tc.eserver.org/30228.html The building block system includes several types of Connectors that make it possible for designers and architects to link the different areas of a Dashboard together via a consistent, easily understandable navigation model. The system also ensures the resulting information architecture can grow in response to changing needs and content. There's no special stacking hierarchy for the Connectors. However, they do have an official stacking size (most are size 3) in order to keep Dashboards constructed with the building blocks internally consistent. http://tc.eserver.org/30193.html http://tc.eserver.org/30193.html One hundred and one tips for designing digital forms using Adobe Acrobat. http://tc.eserver.org/30191.html http://tc.eserver.org/30191.html Das kennt man: ein ahnungsloser Klick und plötzlich öffnet sich eine mega-lange PDF-Datei. Seitengestalter sind deshalb angehalten Links auf PDF-Dateien zu kennzeichnen. Selbstverständlich macht das inzwischen auch (fast) jeder. http://tc.eserver.org/30190.html http://tc.eserver.org/30190.html This article examines the claims of those PDF critics and argues that usability complaints about PDF documents are misdirected, and further, highlights some of the key reasons why PDF is the preferred electronic document format. http://tc.eserver.org/30144.html http://tc.eserver.org/30144.html As Information Development organizations grow and mature, their organizational structure should grow and mature as well. The optimal structure for an organization in its early stages should focus on achieving stability and repeatable quality. As an organization matures, the optimal structure may need to be significantly different to develop a more thorough understanding of customers and contribute substantially to customer satisfaction. http://tc.eserver.org/30123.html http://tc.eserver.org/30123.html Hart explains how understanding hierarchies--the order in which information is grouped--can help you choose an appropriate balance between the depth and breadth of your online information. http://tc.eserver.org/30122.html http://tc.eserver.org/30122.html XML-based publishing challenges authors to convert from the familiar desktop-publishing routine to new tools. This article explains what you should consider when deciding whether to implement XML. http://tc.eserver.org/30115.html http://tc.eserver.org/30115.html FileMaker 9 opens up ODBC data in a revolutionary way, via the new feature External SQL Data Source. You can work with external data in your FileMaker Pro solutions as if it is FileMaker Pro data. http://tc.eserver.org/30114.html http://tc.eserver.org/30114.html XML will change the way you develop and integrate your databases. http://tc.eserver.org/30111.html http://tc.eserver.org/30111.html A well-known advocate for the effective use of new technologies in the legal profession, New Orleans-based attorney Ernest Svenson finds Adobe Acrobat and PDF to be highly valued tools in a document-intensive field. http://tc.eserver.org/30110.html http://tc.eserver.org/30110.html Most PDF files do not include bookmarks. This is a pity, because they are so easy to add, and because the real-world usability of longer PDF files suffers significantly by their absence. And there's no shortage of tools for creating and managing bookmarks, as this product survey article explains. http://tc.eserver.org/30112.html http://tc.eserver.org/30112.html Duff Johnson looks at how several federal government agencies use Acrobat and PDF to solve old problems and, in some cases, to create new opportunities. http://tc.eserver.org/30108.html http://tc.eserver.org/30108.html Demonstrates and explains a collection of handy tips dealing with various tools and features of Adobe Acrobat. http://tc.eserver.org/30105.html http://tc.eserver.org/30105.html New office document standards like the OpenDocument Format(ODF) and Office Open XML (OOXML), however, are making office document integration in business processes a reality. A key benefit of ODF and OOXML for developers is the reuse of existing standards. http://tc.eserver.org/30062.html http://tc.eserver.org/30062.html The recent emergence of online digital archives has brought educators a major step closer to bringing original, reusable digital objects into undergraduate classrooms. Yet having to search multiple archives through mind-numbing search-and-browse routines can make it extremely difficult for educators to use the repositories successfully in their curriculum. What educators need is a suite of tools that allow them to reduce the search for relevance, expand the metadata with user-specific annotation, and tie the digital libraries' content directly to course materials. The keys to creating these resources are to build distributed networks of users and repositories. Cost containment often severely limits the amount of descriptive metadata that can be catalogued. Students and instructors create topical annotated bibliographies or lists of media clips (or segments of media clips) and 'publish' these for class, work group, or more general use. Allowing teachers and students to annotate and segment media as well as build their own galleries greatly enhance the educational value of digital objects by augmenting the minimal descriptive metadata and facilitating the building of complex digital objects tailored to the needs of specific education standards and curricula. The project uses a METS XML schema that provides an encoding format for administrative, descriptive, and structural metadata that is fully compliant with OAIS, and open source applications to facilitate ingestion and delivery (as well as help to control costs). http://tc.eserver.org/30038.html http://tc.eserver.org/30038.html Argues that IAs can do their jobs better if they understand organizational change management, even if they don't need to be change management specialists. I'll also suggest a variety of concepts and practices that can (hopefully) help IAs in their change agent role, and I promise to throw in something entertaining as well. http://tc.eserver.org/30037.html http://tc.eserver.org/30037.html Metadata is structured data which describes the characteristics of a resource. It shares many similar characteristics to the cataloguing that takes place in libraries, museums and archives. The term 'meta' derives from the Greek word denoting a nature of a higher order or more fundamental kind. A metadata record consists of a number of pre-defined elements representing specific attributes of a resource, and each element can have one or more values. http://tc.eserver.org/30013.html http://tc.eserver.org/30013.html Visual and interaction design for successful e-commerce Web sites and Web-based applications requires meticulous attention to detail. Because the smallest matters can ruin the user experience, an orderly process--such as usage-centered design--guided by robust principles is needed; iterative testing and repetitive redesign is inadequate to find and address all the diverse matters needing attention. This paper reviews basic principles and then surveys best practices in the detailed aspects of Web design in three broad areas: details of architecture or organization, details of interaction design, and details relating to commercial activity, especially shopping. Specific recommendations in each area are offered as examples of best practices based on usage-centered principles. http://tc.eserver.org/29995.html http://tc.eserver.org/29995.html We hear the term knowledge management bandied about. It sounds suspiciously like a trendy new phrase for what we used to call 'documentation.' In truth, knowledge management is more than documentation. It encompasses documentation, data management, library management, and information design. Knowledge management is increasingly important; as the amount of content has increased, the task of locating the information in the content has become more difficult. You see, information is different from content. And knowledge is something that derives from information. http://tc.eserver.org/29986.html http://tc.eserver.org/29986.html Microformats is a term used to describe the storage of information using simple markup variations within existing markup languages. To a certain extent, microformats describes a methodology or philosophy, and comprises a set of design principles. Microformats is not a new language. It is usually a permutation of XHTML. The philosophy of microformats involves storing data in human-readable formats which are also machine-readable, but the emphasis is on the humans! Information tends to be visible, rather than hidden metadata. http://tc.eserver.org/29977.html http://tc.eserver.org/29977.html This article looks at the impact of the introduction of semantic markup and structured authoring on the world of technical writers, editors, Help authors and content developers. This article is not specifically about the Semantic Web movement itself, but about the implementation of semantic concepts in the documentation field. http://tc.eserver.org/29978.html http://tc.eserver.org/29978.html XML became an integral part of Microsoft's strategy around the time of Internet Explorer 4. IE4 was an XML-aware browser. As well as displaying HTML documents, it could also display XML documents through an inbuilt XML parser. Another part of IE4 was something known as the XML DSO (Data Source Object). The XML DSO allows you to manipulate primitive XML 'data islands' by binding (or attaching) the XML data to HTML presentation elements. The XML elements within Internet Explorer continue to be improved and added to with every new IE release. http://tc.eserver.org/29979.html http://tc.eserver.org/29979.html Maybe XML is more like a carcinogen. We don't notice it's there, but we're still getting exposed to it. In ever-increasing doses. But unlike a carcinogen, XML is not bad for our health; in fact, it has many life-enhancing properties. Well, work-enhancing properties. http://tc.eserver.org/29958.html http://tc.eserver.org/29958.html The domain model is a familiar concept to most OOP (Object Oriented Programming) developers and architects, and has been used successfully in a variety of systems and projects. But how does this principle apply to SOA-based solutions? http://tc.eserver.org/29962.html http://tc.eserver.org/29962.html XML is often used today as a data export and exchange format. In such cases, you might deal with a feed of XML records; sometimes, if this feed, is too long, there are performance problems importing it into another system. As such, you might want to produce only an incremental feed--that is, one that only includes items that have changed. This article presents a collection of simple techniques that you can combine into a system for more digestible feeds containing only updated records. http://tc.eserver.org/29953.html http://tc.eserver.org/29953.html Firefox 2.0 brought several important changes in its XML support. It's currently reaching its peak in user deployment. Learn about updated XML features in Firefox 2.0, including a controversial change to the handling of RSS Web feeds. http://tc.eserver.org/29956.html http://tc.eserver.org/29956.html A Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) typically exports a range of services. For XML service modelling and subsequent consumption of those services by users (people, machines, or other services), Java technology provides powerful mechanisms to handle XML data, which in turn provides a key foundation for using SOA concepts. Dive into the practical aspects of SOA using XML and Java technology, and discover clear examples of why this seemingly complex technology is so popular. http://tc.eserver.org/29960.html http://tc.eserver.org/29960.html This two-part article series is designed to get PHP developers up to speed in leveraging Web 2.0 XForms forms for their PHP forms development so that they can finally put their outdated Web 1.0 HTML forms away. This will be accomplished by creating a library of functions that generate XForms elements when called upon. In this article, Part 1 of a two-part series, developers will create the XForms library using PHP, allowing each function to take in parameters and output XForm elements. http://tc.eserver.org/29959.html http://tc.eserver.org/29959.html This two-part article seriess is designed to get PHP developers up to speed in leveraging Web 2.0 XForms forms for their PHP forms development so that they can finally put their outdated Web 1.0 HTML forms away. In Part 1, you created the PHP XForms library. In this article, Part 2, you will enhance the library to include some error checking and convenience functions to help make using the library more manageable, and lastly you'll demo the library by creating a proof of concept XForm. http://tc.eserver.org/29929.html http://tc.eserver.org/29929.html Business needs often necessitate data migration from a smaller, less secure database to a higher end, faster database server with a more reliable availability. A typical scenario is the migration of data from a desktop sized database such as MS Access or Fox Pro to any other higher end database servers such as MS SQL Server, Oracle, DB2 or SQL Anywhere Server. Oracle SQL Developer 1.2 with this latest version is sometimes called the Migration version as it supports migrating data from three vendors (MySQL, SQL Server and MS Access) to an Oracle database. In fact, it has been designed to migrate from more than one version of MS Access. This feature was not available in the version 1.1 of this tool. http://tc.eserver.org/29919.html http://tc.eserver.org/29919.html This podcast features Char James-Tanney's June 2007 presentation to the Suncoast Florida STC chapter on virtual ways of communicating. http://tc.eserver.org/29913.html http://tc.eserver.org/29913.html Information models are a critical component of single sourcing, enterprise content management, and dynamic content management. The information model is your blueprint for the effective writing, structuring, and delivery of reusable content. This session explains how to design information models, including information product models and element models. It also explains the role of metadata and how to effectively design it. http://tc.eserver.org/29907.html http://tc.eserver.org/29907.html This paper presents an overview of the process and toolset developed for maintaining, updating, and generating user documentation for a complex Department of Defense (DoD) vulnerability analysis model. The roles of HyperText Markup Language (HTML) and eXtensible Markup Language (XML) in developing a single source solution are examined. The additional role of the Alchemy toolset, which is a customized solution to address page layout formatting in HTML, is also examined. Finally, practical application of this process/toolset to a generic software project is discussed. http://tc.eserver.org/29901.html http://tc.eserver.org/29901.html Technical writing classes can be excellent launch pads for students to begin the journey of discovering what IA is and how it works. Following instructional design principles, educators must first determine what students know about IA and guide learners to what they need to know. This journey can begin by defining IA using the rich resources that exist in print and on the web. Following this, students are introduced to IA authorities, many of whom have tutorials posted on the web. The learning culminates in case histories that ask students to learn IA principles and apply them as part of a written critical analysis of web sites that is also part of an oral presentation. http://tc.eserver.org/29821.html http://tc.eserver.org/29821.html Rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) represents a mechanism for exhibiting temporal information instead of spatial information to overcome the limitations of small-screen devices. Previous studies examining this area focused only on information presented by RSVP displays and disregarded changes in the performance of accompanying tasks associated with such displays. Therefore, this investigation performed a dual-task experiment (a search task for static information and a reading task for RSVP display information) to examine the effects of presentation mode (character-by-character, word-by-word, and one-line format), speed (171, 260, 350, and 430 characters per minute, or cpm), and text-flow orientation (vertical and horizontal orientation) of RSVP display information on the visual performance of users during different stages of usage (whether current usage is the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, or eighth day of usage) for a small screen. http://tc.eserver.org/29796.html http://tc.eserver.org/29796.html Paper presents difficulties that are increasingly intractable as the amount of information we use grows. We all know this. Yet recently a chorus of voices has emerged, saying that the 'paperless office,' a development widely predicted in the 1970s, is a myth. http://tc.eserver.org/29782.html http://tc.eserver.org/29782.html The information age provides great opportunity--and threat--to technical communicators. By understanding more about the general domain--specifically the relationship between communication and information design--we have the opportunity to become valued business partners to our employers and clients. http://tc.eserver.org/29784.html http://tc.eserver.org/29784.html The most critical and time-consuming aspect of your decision to adopt information architecture as a backbone of your information development process might not be the adoption of new guidelines or tools, but moving the mindset and culture of the organization so that it can operate effectively in the new paradigm. Using examples from real experiences, the authors of this paper describe the organizational 'culture shock' that can occur when a team or organization moves to an information-architected model for content delivery--the likely pitfalls and some ways to overcome them. http://tc.eserver.org/29742.html http://tc.eserver.org/29742.html A weblog or 'blog' is a Web site with content consisting of a series of discrete postings added sequentially and presented in reverse chronological order. Historically used for personal Web sites, blogs in fact represent a form of lightweight content management that can be adapted to virtually any topic, including technical communication. The recent explosion of blogs is in part a result of the availability of publishing tools that simplify their creation. These tools vary significantly in capability, setup, and ease of use, and each offers advantages and disadvantages. http://tc.eserver.org/29677.html http://tc.eserver.org/29677.html What strategies has society employed to collect, manage, and store information, even with the constant threat of oversupply, and still make this information accessible and meaningful to people over time? http://tc.eserver.org/29673.html http://tc.eserver.org/29673.html A map-based approach to building a content inventory allows it to be a tool from the concept stages and throughout the life of the website. Patrick Walsh tells us why to use them, shows us how to create the maps, and how to leverage them over the long haul. http://tc.eserver.org/29676.html http://tc.eserver.org/29676.html Acquiring and installing a search engine is just the beginning of creating an effective enterprise search system. John Ferrara walks us through strategies for addressing critical aspects of the user experience often overlooked or ignored. http://tc.eserver.org/29628.html http://tc.eserver.org/29628.html Many technical communicators manage large collections of graphic files and must keep track of which graphics are used in which deliverables. An effective tool for managing a collection of graphic files is a relational database management system (RDMS) such as Microsoft Access. Before the database can be built in Access, it is necessary to 1) create detailed functional requirements and 2) build a high-level conceptual model from which the database relations (tables) can be derived. A spreadsheet program can be used to build the conceptual model and generate the relations. Normalization checks should be performed on the relations before the database is implemented in Access. http://tc.eserver.org/29693.html http://tc.eserver.org/29693.html Our grasp of single-sourcing has come a long way in the past few years. This is thanks in part to technology that makes it easier to reuse content and in part to our pundits that introduce new ideas into our community. However the practice of single-sourcing is not new. For decades other industries, such as manufacturing and software engineering, have been producing components designed to be reused in products across their companies and their industries. What we lack that has made single-sourcing successful in other domains is a common standard for the components. To reach any real measure of success, we must seek to standardize how we manage information. The Information Management Model is an idea that aims to take a step in that direction. http://tc.eserver.org/29860.html http://tc.eserver.org/29860.html BMC Software Inc., a company that writes utility tools for database administrators, wanted to reuse the error messages from partner database companies. Having learned that two of these database companies already used single-source files for their error messages, BMC Software integrated the information about the error messages from the database companies. We accomplished our goal by negotiating with our partner companies for the source files of the error message information. This session discusses how we took those source files and modified them to create simple XML files, then transformed them into HTML using XSL transforms within a product. http://tc.eserver.org/30285.html http://tc.eserver.org/30285.html Several Texas Instruments writing groups are using a new manual publication method that emphasizes more customer interaction early in the manual development process. This emphasis brings project teams and customers together to accurately define their expectations for the documentation. Writers chunk information as they create the manuals, which allows reviewers to look at the small pieces one at a time and to focus only on those chunks containing information pertinent to their particular expertise. This method defines manual parameters early in the process, which simplifies usability testing. http://tc.eserver.org/29589.html http://tc.eserver.org/29589.html An XML data island is a piece of well-formed XML embedded into an HTML file. This article will show you how to retrieve data in an XML format from a database using ADO; you will also learn how to bind this data into an HTML document. http://tc.eserver.org/29586.html http://tc.eserver.org/29586.html XPath is a language for addressing parts of an XML document, designed to be used by both XSLT and XPointer. In this article we will learn about XPath, XPath expressions and how to use XPath in .NET and Java. http://tc.eserver.org/29587.html http://tc.eserver.org/29587.html Simply put RSS is an XML application for simple web feed syndication and content subscriptions. Let's say you have content on your site that you want to feed, or make available for other sites. This is known as web syndication. Most commonly this takes the form of sharing news headlines, product releases, or some similar timely content. RSS provides a standardized method for web sites to use when creating these feeds. http://tc.eserver.org/29590.html http://tc.eserver.org/29590.html This article explains a useful way to embed data in an HTML document, and store it on the client, using XML. With XML becoming ever more pervasive and the client side implementation gaining a lot of ground, you will probably find yourself using this technique in many projects. http://tc.eserver.org/29585.html http://tc.eserver.org/29585.html XML stands for eXtensible Markup Language. XML is used to aid the exchange of data. The language makes it possible to define data in a structured way. XML tags are not predefined like HTML. XML lets you create your own unique tags that are meaningful for your data, hence the use of the term 'extensible.' http://tc.eserver.org/29575.html http://tc.eserver.org/29575.html This paper examines user-generated metadata as implemented and applied in two web services designed to share and organize digital media to better understand grassroots classification. http://tc.eserver.org/29548.html http://tc.eserver.org/29548.html RSS, also known as rich site summary or real simply syndication, arrived on the scene a number of years ago, but was only recently embraced by webmasters as a means to effectively syndicate content. RSS Feeds provide webmasters and content providers an avenue to provide concise summaries to prospective readers. Thousands of commercial web sites and blogs now publish content summaries in an RSS feed. Each item in the feed typically contains a headline; article summary and link back to the online article. http://tc.eserver.org/29495.html http://tc.eserver.org/29495.html Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction is cunningly released at a time when acceptance of Interaction Design as a discipline is reaching a critical mass. The book precipitates a huge turn in the creation of interactive technologies toward the more research/creative or human-centric model, approaching the subject of this change from different angles and illuminating historical insights. http://tc.eserver.org/29493.html http://tc.eserver.org/29493.html Now that you've got a website it's time to start thinking about promoting it. Search engine listings are the number one way to generate traffic to your website. http://tc.eserver.org/29491.html http://tc.eserver.org/29491.html The Google Sandbox is a filter that was put in place in about March of 2004. New websites with new domain names can take 6 to 12 months to get decent rankings on Google. Some are reporting stays of up to 18 months. The Sandbox seems to affect nearly all new websites placing them on probation. Similarly, websites that have made comprehensive redesigns have been caught up in this Sandbox. Does this Sandbox Really Exist, or is it just part of the Google algorithm? This has been a big controversy with many different opinions. Most now believe that this is an algorithm. In either case, the Sandbox functions to keep new sites from shooting to the top of Google in just a few weeks and overtaking quality sites that have been around for many years. This appears to be an initiation period for new websites. http://tc.eserver.org/29489.html http://tc.eserver.org/29489.html Google's increasing use of anti-spam features has meant that optimising websites for Google has become much harder and it's now not just a case of opening your websites source files in notepad, adding some keywords into your various HTML tags, uploading your files and waiting for the results. In fact in my opinion and I'm sure others will agree with me, this type of optimisation, commonly referred to as onpage optimisation will only ever be 20% effective at achieving rankings for any keywords which are even mildly competitive. Those of us who aced maths in school will know this leaves us with 80% unaccounted for. http://tc.eserver.org/29490.html http://tc.eserver.org/29490.html Explain some of the first steps to get your website not only optimized for the search engines, but to push your website up in the rankings war. http://tc.eserver.org/29492.html http://tc.eserver.org/29492.html Outbound links' anchor text affects a page's search engine ranking in much the same way that inbound links' anchor text affects search engine ranking. http://tc.eserver.org/29469.html http://tc.eserver.org/29469.html I started The Myths of Innovation in a positive frame of mind, generated by my interest in the topic (and the excitement of seeing my photos in print). I ended the book similarly enthusiastic. While it isn't a long read (I started in Cambridge and finished before I touched down in Los Angeles), good books don't need a lot of words to make their point. Scott Berkun clearly presents his arguments, demolishing many of the misconception about innovation. For those of us running businesses or developing new products, it's a must-read. http://tc.eserver.org/29465.html http://tc.eserver.org/29465.html XML alone is not enough to effectively manage your organization's global content. Explore global XML and its benefits. http://tc.eserver.org/29470.html http://tc.eserver.org/29470.html Creating a clickable PDF to prototype a new design is not a new concept, but it is a valuable tool that is often overlooked and underutilized. While working over the years with other designers, information architects and usability professionals, I've noticed that many of my colleagues believe the same fallacies about the limitations of PDFs. Contrary to popular belief, you can do more than just create links and interactive forms with PDFs; you can also add dynamic elements such as rollovers and drop-down menus, embed audio and video files, validate form data, perform calculations and respond to user actions. PDF prototypes have the ability to replicate most interactive design elements without investing a lot of time and effort. http://tc.eserver.org/29461.html http://tc.eserver.org/29461.html Is DITA right for your organization? This article provides a starting point for your own research on DITA. http://tc.eserver.org/29458.html http://tc.eserver.org/29458.html The XMetaL-DITA group was founded to educate XMetaL users in working with the DITA standard. http://tc.eserver.org/29447.html http://tc.eserver.org/29447.html This article by Jayaram Krishnswamy shows how you can install the Oracle SQL Developer 1.2 and connect to an MS Access database. This article will cover the steps right from downloading and installing the Oracle SQL Developer, to connecting to a MS Access database, and using the SQL interface along with a few sample queries. http://tc.eserver.org/29440.html http://tc.eserver.org/29440.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/29443.html http://tc.eserver.org/29443.html Not all content is created equal. In fact, the real issue isn't the primacy of content, since no user in their right mind will come to stare at a blank screen labeled Me.com; the real issue is what type of content you're offering. http://tc.eserver.org/29444.html http://tc.eserver.org/29444.html Although some zealots have proposed eliminating printed information entirely in favor of online help systems, Adobe Acrobat files, and even e-books, discarding printed books may prove less effective than simply modernizing them. Scrolls are the logical successors to books. http://tc.eserver.org/29419.html http://tc.eserver.org/29419.html One of our favorite cliches is that you can't use the printed book as a model for online information. Web-based information, which is following the same evolutionary progress as online help systems, has inherited this 'books are bad' philosophy. However, any statement we've begun to take for granted bears some re-examination, because unquestioningly accepting dogma undermines our efforts to improve communication. http://tc.eserver.org/29411.html http://tc.eserver.org/29411.html Nobody is offering courses in how to prepare hypermedia, nor are there a large number of jobs available for hypermedia authors. As we begin to come up against the limits imposed by the volume of existing knowledge, we will eventually be forced to place more importance on managing our information explosion. http://tc.eserver.org/29391.html http://tc.eserver.org/29391.html DITA Users is a membership organization that includes: individuals learning DITA; organizations moving to single-source authoring and multi-channel publishing; vendors of XML Editors and XML Content Management Systems. http://tc.eserver.org/29401.html http://tc.eserver.org/29401.html A gathering place for information about DITA. http://tc.eserver.org/29392.html http://tc.eserver.org/29392.html The STOP teams brilliant practical approach to outlining also looks forward to a number of activities that have become more convenient thanks to electronic outlining software--collaborative work on organization, visual display of a verbal structure, an iterative process of research, outlining, and drafting focused on the same document, and the large organizations need for standard templates defining the structure of generic modules. In these ways, the STOP team are forerunners for practices that even today are avant garde. http://tc.eserver.org/29399.html http://tc.eserver.org/29399.html DITA is quickly becoming the dominant XML schema for topic-oriented authoring. DITA is a highly practical way of moving to XML authoring in general and granular content reuse in particular. DITA distinguishes itself from predecessor standards by explicitly rejecting the book paradigm in favour of a topic-oriented model. http://tc.eserver.org/29398.html http://tc.eserver.org/29398.html Lone-DITA's goal is to provide resources for solo Technical Writers, or those who are part of a small documentation team, who want to implement DITA at their organization. http://tc.eserver.org/29397.html http://tc.eserver.org/29397.html Cisco Systems recognizes a need to move from creating and delivering large inflexible training courses, to database driven objects that can be reused, searched, and modified independent of their delivery media. This effort is called the Reusable Information Object Strategy. This strategy defines the standards and process for designing and developing Reusable Information Objects (RIOs) at Cisco Systems. http://tc.eserver.org/29402.html http://tc.eserver.org/29402.html This article explores ideas related to subsetting and customizing the DITA specification without the addition of new elements. Instead, we explore taking default rules and adapting them to meet the needs of specific writing and publishing environments. Introductory information about the DITA specification and the difference between subsetting and specialization is provided. http://tc.eserver.org/29395.html http://tc.eserver.org/29395.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/29385.html http://tc.eserver.org/29385.html A weblog about the Web, computer vision and life. http://tc.eserver.org/29375.html http://tc.eserver.org/29375.html Known to write a script or two to automate repetitive tasks like help builds, she also likes to write posts about XML-based information models like Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA). She often experiments with online help technology, enjoys writing blog entries, and wants to find new ways to use communication to help people understand technical solutions to complex problems. http://tc.eserver.org/29355.html http://tc.eserver.org/29355.html Describes the effect of bookmark naming on bookmark recognition. The purpose is to provide empirically-determined guidelines for web producers on how to title pages in order to optimise the recognition of bookmarks by users, and increase the rate of revisitation to their websites. http://tc.eserver.org/29357.html http://tc.eserver.org/29357.html Describes the effect of bookmark naming on bookmark recognition. The purpose was to provide empirically-determined guidelines for web producers on how to title pages in order to optimise the recognition of bookmarks by users, and to increase the rate of revisitation as a result. http://tc.eserver.org/29331.html http://tc.eserver.org/29331.html Recently, much criticism has arisen about the design of slides created with Microsoft PowerPoint. This web page challenges PowerPoint's default design of a single word or short phrase headline supported by a bullet list. Rather than subscribing to Microsoft's topic-subtopic design for slides, this web page advocates an assertion-evidence design, which serves presentations that have the purpose of informing and persuading audiences about technical content. http://tc.eserver.org/29323.html http://tc.eserver.org/29323.html I was shocked today when I realized I hadn't ever written a post on tagging. At the ASTD TechKnowledge conference, when I explained Web 2.0 to a group, tagging was an integral part of the conversation. But tagging requires you to take a step back from the web, and consider how you think. http://tc.eserver.org/29304.html http://tc.eserver.org/29304.html This month I'm taking a break from covering XSLT 2.0 to describe how the combination of XSLT 1.0 and an application with an open XML format solved a problem for me. I solved this problem so quickly and easily that it got me thinking about how the combination of XSLT 1.0 and the increasing amount of open XML formats are opening up a world of simple, valuable new applications and utilities for us to write. http://tc.eserver.org/29293.html http://tc.eserver.org/29293.html There is an astonishing amount of disbelief that the users of web pages have learned to scroll and that they do so regularly. Holding on to this disbelief--this myth that users won't scroll to see anything below the fold--is doing everyone a great disservice, most of all our users.