http://tc.eserver.org/publisher/Cherryleaf A listing of works published by Cherryleaf 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/Cherryleaf http://tc.eserver.org/35826.html http://tc.eserver.org/35826.html Wikis are a great way to create and publish documentation online, but there are many wikis that haven’t worked. They comprise just a few pages of incomplete, out of date information. Why is that? Why do some wikis work and others just fail? Here are six key reasons. http://tc.eserver.org/35530.html http://tc.eserver.org/35530.html This video on simplifying business, using the metaphor of organising a children’s party, made me smile and consider how successful documentation projects are managed. The presenter is suggesting managers need to, in complex systems, give up rigid control from above. Instead, they should watch for organisational patterns, encouraging the good and discouraging the bad. http://tc.eserver.org/35423.html http://tc.eserver.org/35423.html The reasons for the White House's decision to run its Web site, whitehouse.gov, on the open source content management system Drupal are being discussed on various Web sites. Alongside Drupal's functionality, flexibility and openness, some are suggesting that Drupal's documentation was also a key factor for deciding to use this system. http://tc.eserver.org/35436.html http://tc.eserver.org/35436.html This a short video overview of managing a documentation project. It's something we put together as a test of some of the functionality of Techsmith's Camtasia software. http://tc.eserver.org/35195.html http://tc.eserver.org/35195.html For simple, commonly known actions in a closed environment, you probably can design your way to a “no user documentation” approach. Good design can also lead to less documentation. However, customers may expect to do more than that with a product and, in those situations, documentation can play a key role in meeting those expectations. http://tc.eserver.org/34777.html http://tc.eserver.org/34777.html In order to understand the way marketing people see the world, it’s worth reading Blogs on marketing (by people such as Seth Godin), the Cluetrain Manifesto, and reading a few books on marketing. http://tc.eserver.org/34698.html http://tc.eserver.org/34698.html It’s often useful to look at the economic and technological pressures in other industries, to see if the trends emerging there are relevant to the technical communications/publications sector. In recent Blogs, we’ve covered the issues emerging in education, but the telecommunications industry might also provide some useful insights. http://tc.eserver.org/34266.html http://tc.eserver.org/34266.html Technical authors are faced with limited time and resources, so they often are faced with the dilemma as to what to include and what to leave out of their user documentation. You may ask, if 80% read only 20% of the content, is there any value in documenting the rest? http://tc.eserver.org/33865.html http://tc.eserver.org/33865.html In recessionary times, organisations should focus on getting sales from existing customers - so customer retention becomes ever more important. http://tc.eserver.org/33600.html http://tc.eserver.org/33600.html Last month, Forrester Research released results from a survey on how much consumers trust different sources for information. They didn't include online Help or knowledge bases in the survey, so we don't know how well or badly they would have come out in the survey. http://tc.eserver.org/33416.html http://tc.eserver.org/33416.html Technical Writers (aka Technical Authors, Content Wranglers and Documentation Managers) have an unfair image. This project aims to challenge this image, by showing technical writers in a different light. The photos below are of technical communications professionals, doing a variety of activities. http://tc.eserver.org/33291.html http://tc.eserver.org/33291.html Connecting people and giving them a place in the world IS (what makes you a living). I immediately thought, this affects technical authors. They connect people to information, rather than people. They help people find their place. They play a role in building and maintaining an organisation's tribe. They show there's more to the supplier-customer relationship than the moment of the sale. http://tc.eserver.org/33171.html http://tc.eserver.org/33171.html In a downturn, priorities in a business often change, and these changes can affect technical authors as much as others. At the London Connections event earlier this week, where I was promoting Cherryleaf's technical writing services, I was chatting to Mike Southon about business strategies in a downturn. Mike is Visiting Fellow in Innovation and Entrepreneurship at London South Bank University, amongst other things, so I value his judgement. He said, in a downturn, businesses should focus on its Return on Investment, minimising risk and watching its cashflow. So, does this mean you should favour contract technical authors over permanent staff, or vice versa? Should you outsource technical writing work instead? Actually, each option has its merits. http://tc.eserver.org/32979.html http://tc.eserver.org/32979.html Whilst applications are becoming more complex, many people believe that online user assistance hasn't changed much since WinHelp was introduced with Windows 3. This is a misconception. There have been many developments in this field aimed at increasing end-user productivity and satisfaction. http://tc.eserver.org/32778.html http://tc.eserver.org/32778.html The technical writing process: 1. Ask engineer how the damn thing works. 2. Deafening silence. http://tc.eserver.org/32774.html http://tc.eserver.org/32774.html It may seem counter-intuitive, but we believe technical authors shouldn't fear the trend towards user generated content. http://tc.eserver.org/32763.html http://tc.eserver.org/32763.html In early 2007, Cherryleaf carried out a survey to find out the challenges technical authors face. We looked at satisfaction levels, the status of authors and what was holding them back, if anything. http://tc.eserver.org/31143.html http://tc.eserver.org/31143.html David Ogilvy was an advertising genius who distilled his successful concepts and techniques into a bestselling book I've just finished reading, called "Confessions of an Advertising Man". I wanted to read his book, because I often find it useful to look at other professions and ask whether their ideas could be applied to the world of technical authoring. http://tc.eserver.org/31145.html http://tc.eserver.org/31145.html The benefits of user documentation (reduced support calls, increase in the perceived value of the product, happier customers, better customer retention, increase product usage etc) can be identified, but it can be hard to measure them and accurately quantify the Return on Investment. http://tc.eserver.org/31144.html http://tc.eserver.org/31144.html I would argue that 'Presentation Zen' contains ideas that are also relevant to technical communication. http://tc.eserver.org/30261.html http://tc.eserver.org/30261.html Outlining and structuring the manual are the most important major steps in creating a manual. Indeed, professional writers spend up to 50% of the total time on this task. http://tc.eserver.org/30262.html http://tc.eserver.org/30262.html Professional business writers, such as technical authors, typically break a document down into small, discrete units of information, organised around a skeleton of topic headings. If you use this 'component' or 'modular' approach, you can plan and structure the document using the heading 'labels' that describe each section. http://tc.eserver.org/30260.html http://tc.eserver.org/30260.html It is important you know the key purpose of your document: Who is your audience? What do you want to happen as a result of someone reading it? http://tc.eserver.org/28228.html http://tc.eserver.org/28228.html This article is based on my presentation at the Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators' annual conference in October, 2006. Every now and then, there is a change in the value of what technical authors deliver. These are moments when organisations pay attention to technical documentation. This is because they recognise that these changes mean they can create something that will be of real value to the business and to their customers. In recent years, there have been three "waves of interestingness". The first wave was the introduction of Windows Help (WinHelp). The second major wave was the introduction of the Internet and intranets. This was a time when organisations looked at how they could transfer large amounts of information from paper to online. They were faced with issues such as how users could access and understand all this information easily - issues that technical communicators deal with on a day-to-day basis. I believe we're just about to approach the new wave, which we have called "Tech Writing 2.0". http://tc.eserver.org/28229.html http://tc.eserver.org/28229.html This report outlines the developments in what many are calling "Web 2.0" and the impact that these developments may have on technical and user documentation. We've called these trends "Tech Writing 2.0". Tech Writing 2.0 promises a new means of communication that business can use to promote and support their products and services. This means that the nature of technical communication will change. http://tc.eserver.org/27002.html http://tc.eserver.org/27002.html This article discusses how organisations can resolve the conflict between the need to produce bespoke, customer-specific, technical communication and the need to re-use as much information as possible. It begins with a description of the conflict and resulting trade-off and then compares it to the field of manufacturing, which has found ways to deal with a similar issue. Universal information modules are introduced as the solution - these allow the manufacturing principle of mass customization to be applied to technical communication. The article ends by outlining the requirements needed for supporting tools in order to adopt this solution. http://tc.eserver.org/27003.html http://tc.eserver.org/27003.html These days, staff in localisation departments spend their time essentially on project management, translation and quality assurance. However, by using one of the emerging systems that integrate content creation, localisation and content management into an efficient system, many of these activities can be automated or avoided all together. We are now seeing the emergence of technical content control systems that can be used to improve the turn-around time, translation costs and the quality of the translations themselves. In recent projects, where these systems have been implemented, organisations have seen substantial savings in localisation costs, with word count reductions and translation costs of around 30%. http://tc.eserver.org/25878.html http://tc.eserver.org/25878.html A blog about the experiences of technical authors. http://tc.eserver.org/23069.html http://tc.eserver.org/23069.html In May 2004, I did a presentation to the London group of the Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators on the future for technical authors. This article expands one of the topics discussed - how to promote and market technical authors. http://tc.eserver.org/20787.html http://tc.eserver.org/20787.html A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide)–2000 Edition is the main sourcebook in the project management field. Whilst it covers Project Communications Management, it doesn't extend to user documentation. This article seeks to provide guidance for project managers as to how the user documentation process fits in with the overall project planning. It examines: the traditional way documentation is approached and how it impinges on project planning the effects of making changes to this traditional approach. http://tc.eserver.org/20306.html http://tc.eserver.org/20306.html How a new spin on document management software helped revolutionise customer service at the Queensland Department of Housing. http://tc.eserver.org/20246.html http://tc.eserver.org/20246.html Technical Authors do not have high prominence in the workplace, and they don't have the best of images (as can be seen by the movie 'The Technical Writer'). Today, there are a number of Technical Authors struggling to find new employment in the current IT sector, and one can find messages on Internet newsgroups questioning the future employment prospects for Technical Authors in North America and Europe. Some wonder whether the role of the Technical Author will disappear, like other careers have in the past. In this article we look at the problems faced by Technical Authors in defining their role, and make some recommendations for the future. http://tc.eserver.org/19588.html http://tc.eserver.org/19588.html These flash movies can be redistributed freely on your Web site or intranet, on condition that they are not altered or amended in any way. If you view them on this Web site, they will open in second window. http://tc.eserver.org/19504.html http://tc.eserver.org/19504.html Context-sensitive Help is assistance that is appropriate to where the user is in the software application, and what they are trying to do. Carol Johnston's article describes what programmers and technical authors need to know about Context-sensitive Help. http://tc.eserver.org/19059.html http://tc.eserver.org/19059.html During March and April 2003, Cherryleaf carried out an online survey into the current trends in technical communication. One of the questions we asked was: Do the online user assistance documents produced by your organization contain the following advanced capabilities? http://tc.eserver.org/19058.html http://tc.eserver.org/19058.html During March and April 2003, Cherryleaf carried out an online survey into the current trends in technical communication. One of the questions we asked was: Do the people directly involved with user assistance development at your organization use a single sourcing authoring solution? Our findings are summarised in the article http://tc.eserver.org/18887.html http://tc.eserver.org/18887.html This article explains how we built a solution to producing sales proposals and other sales literature for our own company using an affordable content management solution. http://tc.eserver.org/18817.html http://tc.eserver.org/18817.html During March and April 2003, Cherryleaf carried out an online survey into the current trends in technical communication. One of the questions we asked was: Which software tools do you personally use to do your job? The respondents were able to select more than one tool from the list provided. We filtered our results to find the most popular software tools used by technical communicators in the UK. http://tc.eserver.org/18783.html http://tc.eserver.org/18783.html Many documentation departments produce detailed and well-designed paper documentation. Increasingly, however, one paper manual is not enough. Pressure is growing to deliver your information online, perhaps on several different user platforms. You may need to reuse the information in your manuals for quick reference guides, training courses and marketing publications. This can mean that you find yourself re-creating virtually identical content over and over again. Duplicating your material for multiple media, multiple uses and multiple audiences is time-consuming and costly. http://tc.eserver.org/18749.html http://tc.eserver.org/18749.html Studies have shown organisations value the following benefits: overall organisation, the sales team, and documentation meets the customer's requirements. http://tc.eserver.org/18593.html http://tc.eserver.org/18593.html We were asked recently if we knew of any research on 'standard' ratios between developers and technical authors. We decided to carry out some research and this article covers our preliminary findings. http://tc.eserver.org/18587.html http://tc.eserver.org/18587.html Contains news and information on software and documentation issues, reports on survey into the current trends in technical communication, the future of Help / trends in user assistance, which Help authoring tool to buy, an introduction to single-sourcing, career advice, etc.