Interactions 08 in the Garden of Good and Evil

An interview with Dan Saffer, 2008 Conference Chair and IxDA Director. Dan discusses the context of the organization, how the conference emerged and formed, what the conference will be like, and how one might get a flavor even if attendance is not an option.

Baum, Chris. Boxes and Arrows (2008). Articles>Interviews>Interaction Design>User Experience

InterMOO: Joseph Unger  

A discussion with a systems support specialist, documented from InterMOO.

Wick, Corey and Douglas Eyman. Kairos (1996). Articles>Interviews

Interview with L.J. Haravu  

An interview with the senior manager of Library and Document Services for the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics.

Kudesia, Saurabh. International Journal for Technical Communication (2007). Articles>Interviews>Information Design

Jakob Nielsen

Today Jakob Nielsen is an inspiration and, through his books and seminars, a teacher to many. But what inspired him to get where he is today?

Adlin, Tamara and Jakob Nielsen. UX Pioneers (2007). Articles>Interviews>User Experience

Judy Ramey

Did ye know that studying Medieval troubadours can actually help ye understand the communication challenges we face in our 'High Church of Technology?'

Adlin, Tamara and Judith Ramey. UX Pioneers (2007). Articles>Interviews>User Experience

Karen A. Schriver: The InfoDesign interview

Karen Schriver is the author of Dynamics in Document Design: Creating texts for readers, an extensive, multidimensional portrait of what readers need from documents and of ways to integrate word and image in order to better meet those needs. She is the former co-director of the graduate program in technical communication and document design at Carnegie Mellon University. Her company, KSA Document Design and Research, helps organizations improve the quality of their paper and electronic communications through strategies based on research and best practices.

Bogaards, Peter J. InformationDesign (2005). Articles>Interviews>Document Design>Visual Rhetoric

Kate Discusses the Role of Design in Business with Nathan Shedroff

Kate Rutter recently had a great email conversation with Nathan Shedroff, experience strategist, author, and the Program Chair and founder of the brand new MBA in Design Strategy at California College of the Arts.

Shedroff, Nathan and Kate Rutter. Adaptive Path (2008). Articles>Interviews>Design

Leading Your Company into the Wikis, Blogs, and Social Networks of Web 2.0

In this podcast, I talk with Alan Porter, vice president of Operations at WebWorks, about the Web 2.0 technologies they’re using to reach out to their customer base. In addition to using blogs, wikis, and social networks to connect with customers, WebWorks also uses wikis to facilitate communication and collaboration within their company.

Porter, Alan J. and Tom H. Johnson. Tech Writer Voices (2008). Articles>Interviews>Web Design>Social Networking

Living Multiple Lives — The New Technical Communicator

In this podcast, Noz Urbina talks about how Web 2.0 is changing the role of the technical communicator into one who drives product R&D and interaction design. The interview covers how the role of the technical communicator has evolved into a diversity of roles; how awareness of user needs and requirements allows technical communicators to get involved in product R&D and user interaction design; and how implementing a backwards flow of data from hundreds of internal and external users changes the role of a technical writer to one who aggregates, synthesizes, and ensures quality rather than one who merely writes.

Urbina, Noz and Tom H. Johnson. Tech Writer Voices (2008). Articles>Interviews>Web Design>Interaction Design

Long Live the User (Persona): Talking with Steve Mulder

More companies are doing user research than ever before, but what is becoming of all the information? Steve Mulder talks about strategies for getting research into shape so real people can actually use it. The key: user personas.

Danzico, Liz and Steve Mulder. Boxes and Arrows (2007). Articles>Interviews>User Centered Design>Personas

Making Personas Work for Your Web Site: An Interview with Steve Mulder

It's important for the people responsible for creating the personas to have active listening skills, empathy, and clear communication skills. Ultimately, what design teams need to do is aggregate all of the qualitative or quantitative data into a clearly communicated story. This means that writing and communication skills are also critical. From the point of view of a more tactical skillset, the design team will get better results if they have experience conducting interviews and writing surveys.

Spool, Jared M. User Interface Engineering (2007). Articles>Interviews>User Centered Design>Personas

Mike Brazill on Writing for Developers

Brazill gives tips for writers who document APIs or write other information for developers. He says that because developers are busy and want to get started, you have to write less and provide more examples. Developers are more goal-oriented than task oriented. He also explains the different levels of API writing.

Brazill, Mike and Tom H. Johnson. Tech Writer Voices (2007). Articles>Interviews>Documentation>Podcasts

Mike Kuniavsky

Before he co-founded Adaptive Path, Mike sold hot sauce online and built giant dancing robots. Today he thinks about things like boxes of chocolates that deliver joy and surprise long after the candy is gone.

Adlin, Tamara and Mike Kuniavsky. UX Pioneers (2007). Articles>Interviews>User Experience

Moving 50,000 Pages of Unstructured Content to DITA

In 2006, Business Objects faced a major challenge. How to migrate over 50,000 pages of unstructured non-topic based documentation it had acquired through rapid growth and acquisitions. The answer was to use DITA to standardize content creation, management, translation and publishing processes company-wide. In this short podcast, David Holmes talks about how he and his team migrated 50,000 unstructured pages to DITA. (DITA is an XML architecture that allows you to better single source your content.)

Holmes, David and Tom H. Johnson. Tech Writer Voices (2008). Articles>Interviews>Content Management>DITA

Peter Merholz

From deciding he hated math to becoming the president of Adaptive Path, Peter describes a career driven by experience design.

Adlin, Tamara and Peter Merholz. UX Pioneers (2007). Articles>Interviews>User Experience

Podcast: Using Video in Training and Documentation, Interview with Todd O’Neill

In this podcast, rich media specialist Todd O’Neill explains how to add video to your training and documentation deliverables. Many technical writers are intimidated by the learning curve, equipment costs, and software they think they need to create video, but actually you can create engaging videos with minimal equipment (e.g., $150 for a Flip video camera) and using software you probably already have (e.g, Windows Movie Maker or iMovie). In this podcast, Todd lays out the basics for those who know nothing about video. He explains the equipment you need, techniques for minimizing editing time, ways to publish the video online, filming techniques to focus on, and creative ways to package your video for your users.

O'Neill, Todd and Tom H. Johnson. Tech Writer Voices (2008). Articles>Interviews>Documentation>Multimedia

Reinventing the Media Interview

The media interview seems like a pretty cut-and-dry experience. Reporter calls source. Reporter interviews source. Reporter uses portions of the interview in a piece and a lot more as background. Those of us who have been in PR a long time or have been interviewed by the press frequently know the drill. However, the media interview as we know it is going through a radical transformation, and it's starting not with the reporters but with bloggers.

Rubel, Steve. Communication World Bulletin (2006). Articles>Interviews>Blogging

Rendezvous with KnowGenesis: Dr. Carol M. Barnum    

Carol M. Barnum is Professor of Technical Communication and Director of the Usability Center, at Southern Polytechnic State University in Marietta, GA. She is also a technical communication consultant specializing in custom training and usability, an award-winning author, a top presenter at the Society for Technical Communication (STC) annual conferences, a Fellow of STC, and a recipient of the STC's Jay R. Gould Award for Excellence in Teaching Technical Communication. She was a member of the STC's board of directors for seven years, three years as a Director-Sponsor and four years as Assistant to the President for Publications. Her graduate and undergraduate courses in technical communication at Southern Polytechnic include a graduate level course in usability testing. Her consulting work includes testing hardware, computer-based training, software, and websites. Her most recent book, Usability Testing and Research, reflects the focus of her work on usability since 1992. In her discussion with KnowGenesis, she shared her views on how organizations can benefit by investing more on usability research.

Kudesia, Saurabh. International Journal for Technical Communication (2006). Articles>Interviews>TC>User Experience

Rendezvous with KnowGenesis: Geoffrey Sauer    

An interview with Geoffrey Sauer, a professor of Rhetoric and Professional Communication and the director of the EServer TC Library.

Sauer, Geoffrey and Saurabh Kudesia. International Journal for Technical Communication (2007). Articles>Interviews>TC

Rendezvous with KnowGenesis: Mark H. Clifford    

Mark H. Clifford's career in technical communication has included managing eighty-plus writers and designers engaged on projects with clients in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany. He was part of a project team that developed a process model for outsourcing, and then running technical communication groups for major organizations (HP, Nokia, Ferranti) worldwide. He currently runs his own information design and recruitment company, providing consultancy and resource solutions for European clients from offices in the UK and France.

Kudesia, Saurabh. International Journal for Technical Communication (2006). Articles>Interviews>TC

Rendezvous with KnowGenesis: Mark Neely     

Master Strategist in discussion with the KnowGenesis editor-in-chief about the range of opportunities and challenges that lay ahead for the digital media industry.

Kudesia, Saurabh. International Journal for Technical Communication (2008). Journals>Interviews>Copyright

Rendezvous with KnowGenesis: Nick Maselli, Senior Manager, English Editing Group, UTStarcom Telcom, People's Republic of China    

An interview with Nick Maselli, Senior Manager, English Editing Group, UTStarcom Telcom, People's Republic of China.

Kudesia, Saurabh. International Journal for Technical Communication (2007). Articles>Interviews>TC

Rob Houser on Creating Nontraditional E-Learning

Rob explains how you can use Captivate to create nontraditional e-learning materials, such as on-the-job training, sales and marketing training, or even bird-watching training. You aren't just limited to technical how-to information in screen demos.

Houser, Rob. Tech Writer Voices (2007). Articles>Interviews>Education>Online

Rosenfeld Media: UX Publishing Startup: An Interview with Lou Rosenfeld and Liz Danzico

After working on five books as an editor or co-author, Lou Rosenfeld became disenchanted with the traditional book publishing model. So, in late 2005, he founded Rosenfeld Media, a new publishing house that develops short, practical, useful books on user experience design. Rosenfeld Media published their first book, Mental Models: Aligning Design Strategy with Human Behavior, in early 2008. I recently had the opportunity to interview Lou—along with Liz Danzico, Senior Development Editor at Rosenfeld Media—about starting a new publishing house and “eating their own dog food.”

Kaufman, Joshua, Louis Rosenfeld and Liz Danzico. UXmatters (2008). Articles>Interviews>User Experience>Case Studies

Scott Abel on Web 2.0

Abel's presentation on Web 2.0 was the most popular presentation of the STC 2007 conference (at least this is my impression from these interviews). In his presentation, Abel touches upon RSS feeds, wikis, blogs, geospatial positioning, social networking, tagging, podcasts, and other Web 2.0 technologies. He expands here on geospatial positioning and tagging. Abel also explains why he uses a newsletter in addition to a feed for his popular blog, www.thecontentwrangler.com.

Abel, Scott and Tom H. Johnson. Tech Writer Voices (2007). Articles>Interviews>Web Design>Podcasts