The 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint

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.

Kawasaki, Guy. How to Change the World (2005). Articles>Presentations>Information Design>Typography

Beyond the Masculine Web: Considering Sex and Gender Differences in Arrangement and Delivery on the Web  

Men and women don't browse the Web the same way; one should design for both feminine and masculine webs.

Bowie, Jennifer L. Texas Tech University (2003). Presentations>Web Design>Information Design>Gender

Building the Treasure House: Creating Knowledge Bases for the World Wide Web

What is a knowledge base? What are the components necessary to build one?

Massa, Jack A. STC Orange County (1998). Presentations>Documentation>Information Design>Databases

The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint: Slides Are Not All Evil    

This article first reviews three shortcomings in Tufte’s argument, then summarizes the booklet’s well-taken points, before offering guidelines for effective slides, no matter the tool. These guidelines and some of the analysis are based on more than 150 in-depth discussions of slides I have conducted with engineers, scientists, executives, and other professionals at workshops.

Doumont, Jean-luc. Technical Communication Online (2005). Design>Information Design>Presentations

Communicating Effectively With Interaction    

The ability to build interactions that support, enable, and improve communication is a valuable skill for help developers, Web-site designers, multimedia content developers, information-rich user interface designers-anyone who designs and develops information to be used online. This paper presents the basics of interaction design for information products and describes some basic underlying human factors and user-interface design principles.

Ames, Andrea L. ACM SIGDOC (2001). Presentations>Information Design>User Centered Design>Multimedia

Content Management and Information Architecture

Content management is information architecture writ large.

Boiko, Bob. ASIST (2001). Presentations>Content Management>Information Design

COTS: The New Challenge of Information Integration  

Systems engineering is moving away from specially-designed and built systems to integration of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware and software. COTS brings new challenges to technical communicators. In the past, we found all our information in-house, now it comes from many sources. We must change our process from pure development to information integration, and we must be part of the COTS selection process.

Lenk, Donald S. Jr. STC Proceedings (1998). Presentations>Information Design>Software

The Dangers of Personalization

Personalization is coming to technical communication, and the results may not be pretty. n offering the individual an opportunity to pick and choose among XML content objects, we risk causing confusion when the organization of the site appears to shift, and familiar landmarks disappear. Critical content may become invisible to the user. The very process of creating preferences, custom options, or an entire personal profile adds a complex distraction that many users may resent, because it takes them away from their original task for so long that they forget what they were doing. Even advanced search mechanisms, which promise to pinpoint the exact information object the user wants, risk baffling users with their own complexity.

Price, Jonathan R. Communication Circle, The (2001). Presentations>Information Design>Adaptive

Defining The Control Level When Designing Hypermedia Training  

Before coding any part of a hypermedia computer-based training (CBT) system, designers need to decide how much control their users should have over their individual paths through the system. Designers can choose from three different levels of control within a hypermedia CBT system: complete computer control, complete user control, and adaptive computer control. Each level of control is suited to different types of audiences and system goals. Current research provides some guidelines for designers—showing which types of audiences and system goals are suited to which methods of control.

Weise Moeller, Elizabeth A. STC Proceedings (1994). Presentations>Information Design>Hypertext

Delivering Dynamic Content  

Cisco Systems IOS ITD Documentation group had a requirement to move to the dynamic delivery of documentation to their customers. This meant that the documentation had to be redesigned using a component architecture, moved to XML, and delivered through a personalization engine. This session discusses this process and the results.

Badre, Albert and Sharon Laskowski. STC Proceedings (2001). Presentations>Information Design>XML

Designing for Single Source  

“Single source” has come to mean many things to many different people. The basic distinctions are two: (1) distributing the same content in multiple formats and (2) distributing complementary content in the most appropriate medium. The two concepts are not mutually exclusive, i.e., you may have an information strategy that encompasses both ideas. Each methodology has its own advantages, suitability, and requirements. Distributing complementary content in the most appropriate medium requires research and planning, and often results in more effective documentation.

Florsheim, Stewart J. STC Proceedings (2000). Presentations>Information Design>Single Sourcing

Does XML Suck? Or: Why XML is Technologically Terrible, but You Have to Use It Anyway  

XML purports to be a simple, vendor-neutral textual external representation for hierarchically-structured data. But...

Crane, Aaron. XML Sucks (2002). Presentations>Information Design>XML

An Ecological Approach to Design

This talk will explain how to use ecological design, which is an expansion of ethnography, to leverage both the rich local information from case studies, and a wider sociological perspective to take account of global realities.

Nardi, Bonnie A. Argus Center (2000). Presentations>Information Design>Knowledge Management

EMPI Digital Library National Convention - 2007

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

Kudesia, Saurabh. International Journal for Technical Communication (2007). Presentations>Information Design>Knowledge Management>Technical Writing

Games, Information Design, and New Technologies for Technical Communicators  

Developments in communication technologies such as video scriptwriting and interactive multimedia require that technical communicators develop the skills and literacies necessary for adapting to the demands of designing information for media other than print. This paper presents a semiotic theory and model of multimedia discourse which will help technical communicators conceptualize and produce texts in new media. The model operates on the premise that communication practices can be considered as language games. The model focuses on the rhetorical and semiotic features of multimedia language games, and how to manipulate them.

Heba, Gary M. STC Proceedings (1993). Presentations>Information Design>Multimedia>Games

How Does E-Commerce Work?  

This paper explains what e-commerce is and the two different types of e-commerce. The advantages of e-commerce are covered along with the steps needed to setup e-commerce. The different forms of advertising over the internet is covered next. How internet security works is covered in detail including the use of digital certificates and SSL (secure sockets layer). The processing of payments over the internet is the last subject covered including the different ways to pay and how credit card transactions are processed.

Wokosin, Linda. STC Proceedings (2001). Presentations>Information Design

Hypermedia Systems in the New Millennium  

This article revisits three past articles about the implications of hypermedia in the 21st century. Each August, the ACM Journal of Computer Documentation reprints a classic article, book chapter, or report along with several analytical commen- taries and a response by the author of the classic document. In this context, a 'classic' document means one that was published at least five years ago but is no longer in print. It also means one that raises issues of lasting importance to the profession.

Waite, Bob. ACM SIGDOC (2001). Presentations>Information Design>Hypertext

Implementing SGML in the Mainstream: The First Steps  

“SGML is too complex and too costly to implement widely. ” This criticism has often been leveled at the Standard Generalized Markup Language. Mainstream SGML, a new open architecture, challenges that view. Traditionally, implementation has required companies to invest heavily in training. Authors had to learn how to create documents using complex SGML syntax. This method was time-consuming and yielded a slow return on investment. The Mainstream approach to implementing SGML uses resources that already exist in a company. Mainstream SGML provides an alternative to costly, complex native SGML document management systems. This workshop shows you how you can use mainstream SGML to successfully implement SGML in your mainstream business and publishing processes.

Luoma, Ray N. STC Proceedings (1997). Presentations>Information Design>SGML

Incorporating Navigation Research into a Design Method  

A presentation about whether an underlying spatial metaphor aids information design usability.

Lombardi, Victor. Information Architecture Summit (2004). Presentations>Information Design>Usability

The Information Architecture of Everyday Things  

Information architecture is as old as human communication. Where there's information, there's architecture.

Garrett, Jesse James. JJG.net (2002). Presentations>Information Design

Information as Commodity: The State of Technical Communication in the New Millenium  

With the information revolution, technical communicators need to problematize the definition of information, re-evaluate our role in the information food chain as both information producers and consumers, and re-examine how and why we produce information.

Chu, Steve W. STC Proceedings (2000). Presentations>TC>Information Design

Information Design Exercises  

Study the target audience – who are your users? Identify various information elements. Study the user’s work flow. Layout the various information elements based on their characteristics. Highlight critical information. Think visually.

Deshpande, Shashank. STC India (2003). Presentations>Information Design>Education

Information Design for Beginners  

Learning about information design begins with understanding its definitions and exploring its key disciplines: technical writing, design, and usability. Information designers seek to combine skills in these broad fields to make complex information easier to understand. Specialists in the different fields often work together as a team to produce complex products. Stephan Boyd Davis, who teaches at Middlesex University in the United Kingdom, elaborates: “I take design to include fulfilling the practical needs of the intended users and incorporating an element of affect in the user’s experience, often pleasurable and including surprise, delight, satisfaction, and other responses.”

Taylor, Cheri W. STC Proceedings (2000). Presentations>Information Design

Information Design for Web Sites Which Support Complex Decision Making  

Most web site designs tend to focus on optimizing for simple information retrieval, “Find the value of X.” Yet, in decision making, the user’s information needs are much greater. As a minimum, they must understand and compare the value of X with respect to Y. Of course, in a realistic situation, several values must be considered. The information design problems involved in effectively addressing complex decision making has not been adequately researched. This research examines web sites to determine which design factors support complex decision making. It also develops guidelines for designing web sites which support complex decision making.

Albers, Michael J. STC Proceedings (2000). Presentations>Information Design>Web Design