Crafting a User Research Plan

Every piece of user research is part of an ongoing research program, even if that program is informal. However, making a program formal provides a number of advantages: It gives you a set of goals, a schedule that stretches limited user-research resources, and results when they're needed most. It also helps you avoid unnecessary, redundant, or hurried research.

Kuniavsky, Mike. Adaptive Path (2003). Articles>Project Management>Usability

Creating a Corporate Electronic Information Delivery Solution  

Tandem Computers Incorporated developed a new electronic information delivery system and changed internal publishing processes to achieve greater eficiency and customer satisfaction. We were able to move over 1,000 manuals and 11,000 pieces of support documentation along with education material from two different CD-ROM delivery products to one corporate viewer that supports publishing on both CD-ROM and the World Wide Web. The project included creating a new viewer using industry-standard components, creating new publishing tools, and establishing new corporate relationships and processes.

Fingold, Sharon. STC Proceedings (1997). Design>Content Management>Single Sourcing

Creating a Text/Creating a Company: The Role of a Text in the Rise and Decline of a New Organization  

A case study in the history of Microware, a microcomputer software company.

Doheny-Farina, Stephen. WAC Clearinghouse (1991). Articles>Management

Creating an Idea Culture: Six Tips for Managers  

The future of technical communication is about generating and implementing new ideas so that your team can change with the times. Other fields are vying for some of the same jobs in an organization that we are capable of performing. If managers do not take time to stay abreast of these changes nor tap into the minds on their team that are generating ideas about how to morph into different realms, then our profession is at a disadvantage to those in related fields who are drafting proposals for new jobs or innovative projects. This paper presents six tips for managers on creating an idea culture. It also argues why it is essential for managers to start their team's idea culture as soon as possible.

Hansen, Heidi and Jennifer Square. STC Proceedings (2003). Careers>Management>Planning

Creating An Information Model

An Information Model provides the framework for organizing your content so that it can be delivered and reused in a variety of innovative ways. Once you have created an Information Model for your content repository, you will be able to label information in ways that will enhance search and retrieval, making it possible for authors and users to find the information resources they need quickly and easily.

Hackos, JoAnn T. WebRef (2002). Design>Content Management>Single Sourcing>Web Design

Creating Leaders: On the Front Lines and Beyond

Companies such as GE, Procter & Gamble, General Mills, McKinsey, IBM, FedEx and others began building their leadership engines by doing what any great team does: putting the right people in the right leadership positions in the first place. They then strengthen the leaders’ skills and knowledge and rigorously hold them accountable for hitting their operating and financial targets. Let’s peek under the hood at these leadership engines to see how these great companies not only create but sustain leadership engines that continuously produce strong leaders.

Shaffer, Jim. Communication World Bulletin (2007). Articles>Education>Management>Workplace

Creating Single Source Documents with FrameMaker  

A discussion of how to think about FrameMaker templates for single source documents.

Knopf, David A. Knopf Online (2001). Presentations>Content Management>Single Sourcing>Adobe FrameMaker

Creating Single-Sourced Information Products  

Until recently, single sourcing has been limited to the process of putting identical information into multiple information products. However, the results of a singlesourced approach need not be identical. You can customize the outputs to contain only the information that is appropriate for the specific situation. This presentation provides a high-level overview to the advantages of single sourcing and how to implement and maintain such a solution.

Stevens, Dawn M. STC Proceedings (1999). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing

Creative Brief  

A template to provide a brief description of the project. It should outline the objectives, audience, and assumptions for the project and details the creative concept the team intends to use moving forward. This document should accompany the materials for the Conceptual Design Review. Information should be filled in to give an overview to project reviewers who may not be intimately involved in the project. Differs from project overview in that this is specific background information related to design constraints, concerns and other information directly relating to the solution presented for review. The Creative Brief can also be used to inform outside firms about a project when brought in for consulting.

Malone, Erin. AIfIA (2003). Resources>Project Management>Workflow

Creative Ways to Reward Employees and Improve the Quality of their Deliverables  

This panel discussion shows how managers of small, medium, and large technical writing teams use rewards and recognition to: motivate teams to improve their work quality; recognize individuals as opposed to teams; recognize remote team members; retain employees; create a positive work culture.

Murphy, John, Barbara A. Giammona, Ilana Rosenshein, Patrick Reed-Reimer, Taryn Light and Gloria Reisman. STC Proceedings (2001). Presentations>Management

Curing Publishing Woes with a Content Management System  

Mescan's article helps technical communication managers determine which content management solutions are best for their particular goals and problems.

Mescan, Suzanne. Intercom (2004). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing

Customer-Centric Content Management: Level 3 Building the Customer Relationship

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) relies on both methodologies and technologies to assist an organization with the management of all aspects of interaction a company has with its customer. Companies achieve an effective CRM strategy by centralizing information about their customers, ensuring they have access to effective support channels (e.g., self-service, call centers) and by making a concerted effort to know as much as possible about their customers. Knowledge about the customer makes it possible to closley match customer needs with targeted product plans and offerings, point customers to the right information at the right time, and help them accomplish their tasks.

Rockley Bulletin (2006). Articles>Content Management>Management>CRM

Customizing the Appearance of Your Manual, Help System, and HTML Help System  

Doc-To-Help gives Help authors complete control over the look, feel, and content of a project's printed manual, Windows Help system, HTML files, and HTML Help system. Maintaining different content is controlled using Doc-To-Help's conditional text feature, which allows authors to mark content for print-only, online-only, WinHelp-only, and so on. In this article we discuss how you control the appearance of the printed manuals and Help using Word templates, and HTML output using cascading style.

ComponentOne (1999). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing>Documentation

The Daily Stand-Up

The first and most basic rhythm of the Agile feedback cycle is the daily standup. It's just what it sounds like - a daily meeting where everyone stands up for the duration of the meeting. When I give Agile workshops, one of the questions I'm often asked is how to do daily standups when the teams are geographically dispersed. While this can be a challenge to coordinate and maintain, you'll soon find that the benefits of the daily communication make it well worth the effort. Here are several options to consider with your team:

Sliger, Michele. Rally Software Development (2005). Careers>Project Management>Agile>Collaboration

Database-Driven Navigation Bars Using Text and Images

Okay, we've all fiddled with NavBars. In fact, MM's built-in Navigation Bar Builder is pretty sweet for creating NavBars with onMouseOver and onMouseOut behaviors giving your site that professional look. But what if your site changes frequently? One option is to bag the images and stick with a database-driven NavBar that uses a repeat region. We'll look at that approach first. Then we will see how we can replace UltraDev's hardcoded NavBar image behaviors with database-driven links and images.

Princeton University. Design>Content Management>Web Design>Dreamweaver

Dealing With an IT Scourge: Process Documentation  

In this article, we outline how IT analysts can effectively make determinations about the value of process documentation, and in the process, transform a potential scourge into a possible blessing.

Schiesser, Rich. TechRepublic (2005). Articles>Documentation>Programming>Project Management

Dealing with Difficult Employees in the Technical Communication Workplace

Some of the more intractable problems we face on the job are the human ones. But cranky though Microsoft Word often seems, most of its blowups are at least predictable; humans are anything but. The worst problems can arise when you find yourself in a situation where power relationships come into play, which is often the case when you're managing another employee and responsible for their work and their on-the-job behavior. For a variety of reasons, technical communicators are often seen as 'difficult' or 'problem' employees--this means that co-workers tend to complain about us and insist that our managers correct our behavior. Unfortunately, we often work in high-stress environments that make it difficult for us to work calmly and difficult for colleagues to work with us peacefully. Many communicators complain that developers and other subject matter experts (SMEs) don't bother to understand what we do and thus, don't respect our work. As a result, they often consider meeting their own deadlines far more important than helping us do our work, and when we must ask them to provide the information we need to complete our documentation or to review draft documents, we don't get what we need. The result? We're forced to nag, and that can get us labeled as problems, not colleagues.

Hart, Geoffrey J.S. TECHWR-L (2002). Careers>Management>Collaboration>SMEs

Dealing with Images in Content Management Systems, Part 1

Most web-based content management systems offer a variety of tools to help contributors enter text. When it comes to graphics, content contributors are usually expected to provide web-ready images to the system. This means that either editorial users needs to know about image optimisation and web image formats, or additional staff are required to make web-ready images out of raw materials. This article demonstrates a technical solution to this problem.

Crane, Tom. Code Project, The (2006). Articles>Content Management>Graphic Design>ASP

Death by UML Fever

A potentially deadly illness, clinically referred to as UML (Unified Modeling Language) fever, is plaguing many software-engineering efforts today. This fever has many different strains that vary in levels of lethality and contagion. A number of these strains are symptomatically related, however. Rigorous laboratory analysis has revealed that each is unique in origin and makeup. A particularly insidious characteristic of UML fever, common to most of its assorted strains, is the difficulty individuals and organizations have in self-diagnosing the affliction. A consequence is that many cases of the fever go untreated and often evolve into more complex and lethal strains.

Bell, Alex E. Queue (2004). Articles>Project Management>XML>UML

Death to Lorem Ipsum and Other Adventures in Content

Kristina agreed to push the thinking further with a discussion about content, UX teams, and how the relationships can be strengthened to create experiences and projects that really sing. The resulting conversation start with content basics and closes with a bold challenge.

Halvorson, Kristina and Kate Rutter. Adaptive Path (2008). Articles>Interviews>Content Management

Debbie Kennedy on Modular Writing and Reusability

Kennedy's presentation on modular writing and reusability was attended by about 200 people. In her presentation, Debbie explained how to chunk content by first looking at different content types: procedures, processes, facts, principles, and so forth. She also mentions a tool called Content Mapper that writers can use to chunk and reuse information through Microsoft Word.

Kennedy, Debbie. Tech Writer Voices (2007). Articles>Writing>Content Management>Podcasts

Decaf Resistance: On Misbehavior, Cynicism, and Desire in Liberal Workplaces    

The author reconnects resistance in production to its radical roots. Current literature suggests that resistance in the liberal workplaces of late capitalism has gone underground, becoming mostly evident in unofficial, offstage practices such as cynicism, parody, and humor. The author argues this resistance is too often a decaf resistance. This is a resistance without the cost of radically changing the economy of enjoyment, which ties us to our master. The author argues that resistance, as a real act, which suspends and changes the constellation of power relations, has a cost that cannot be accounted for in advance. To understand this cost, we need an ethics, which the author calls, following Lacan, the Ethics of the Real.

Contu, Alessia. Management Communication Quarterly (2008). Articles>Management>Workplace