EServer

Screencasting for Dummies (and Smarties)

With so much training being done on computers (along with other tasks being done while training is taking place on that same computer), it’s important to know some best practices for developing training and other modules with screencasts. Amy Tehan demonstrates tips and tricks for making an effective screencast that will hold the viewer’s attention and get the message across.

Using the EServer TC Library for Course "Outside Readings"

Almost two years ago, I posted a rough note here about teaching my intro to technical communication course using the TC Library as a supplement to the textbook. Here's a more detailed essay on the method, which is working quite well so far.

Multimedia Content Management

Strategies for developing and delivering multimodal content via digital media. Focus on the principles on database design, interface development, usability testing, and collaborative content management within technical communication settings. Projects include training modules, online documentation, dynamic interfaces, and document management systems.

Videotaping Student Presentations: A Quick Start Guide

A guide to using MiniDV digital camcorders to record student presentations, then to review them on a computer and copy them to DVD for later review.

Working Day: 9 to 5

A video documentary about the appropriate use of computer technologies in the workplace, which may be useful in talking about workplace ethics.

EServer Rhetoric and Composition

A collection of resources about writing, argumentation, and organizations related to professional writing.

Planning Ahead in Technical Communication

Describes the course of study that new students in the field of technical communication should consider. Describes what high-tech companies in the Northwest are looking for in prospective employees, and provides information about how to employ particular TC skills to cope with an unsettled job market.

Under, Over and Around the Net: Interrupting the Uptopian Subect of the Internet

I would like to examine the claims that pure subjectivity, free of outside 'political' associations such as gender or nationality, can be achieved in electronic communication.

The Place of the Internet in the History of Publishing

Discusses some critical methodologies we may wish to use in order to make sense of the changes which have occurred in mass media post-1976. It is rather important to understand this history -- the reasons we think the current Internet is confusing is precisely because of the reorganization it represents in the balance of power between ruling interests in our society. In the end, I argue, the Internet is another step in the increasing influence of media and publishing interests, and it is important to read news in online space as part of that history.

Exploring Technical Communication

Exploring Technical Communication is a 30-minute documentary video introducing the profession. It consists of interviews with faculty and students in the University of Washington's Department of Technical Communication and with professionals in the STC.

Calls for Papers: Technical Communication

The EServer CFP site is a database-driven collection of calls for papers in several fields, including TC.

Software Environments for Technical Writing

Starting with the development of Caterpillar Fundamental English in the 1970's, industry has made several attempts to formalize and standardize the writing process, both to promote consistency and quality for the reader and to improve the possibilities for automatic text processing (e.g. translation to other languages). In this presentation, I will review the work we have done at the Language Technologies Institute on a software environment for automatic document checking, specifically to address the issue of how such environments can be productive (and hence useful) for the technical writer.

The Monaco Group

The Monaco Group invigorates communication research and practice in commercial and non-profit environments by developing new approaches and new solutions to communication problems.

Adaptive Web Sites: An Introduction

Broadly marketed Web sites face an increasingly diverse and demanding audience. Each visitor may be searching for something different, and each may have unique needs or concerns. Traditional, 'static' Web sites can try to serve these diverse users by aiming at generalized types of user. However, generalizing the audience may cause an information designer to overlook users who do not quite fit in a category. A more effective way to reach diverse audiences might be adaptive Web sites that customize content and interface to suit each individual. This paper will discuss basic concepts behind adaptive Web sites using Amazon.com, the Internet bookseller, as an example.

Converting Science News for the Web

With the Internet emerging as a primary newsgathering source, many traditional media outlets have converted their products for online viewing. This paper explores how two science news magazines, New Scientist and Science News, have approached this challenge. Elements of hyptertext theory are also included.

Designing an Accessible Web

For many Internet users, the full range of Web content is not accessible. This paper gives a quick overview of the subject of Web accessibility and calls for information designers to join the effort of making the web accessible to all users.

Designing Effective Online Press Rooms

Corporate resources available to journalists today are increasingly Web-based. Though most corporations still have human press contacts, journalists are relying more and more on corporations' 'online press rooms' for background information, quotes, photos, and other information. That same information is just as easily accessible to investors and consumers as well. With journalists' increasing reliance on online press rooms, however, come usability issues. Unless sites are kept current, press releases and other information easy to find, and contact names and numbers easily accessible, journalists are apt to simply give up seeking information on a corporation's site and look elsewhere. The following discussion will note the most common problems with online press rooms and will review relevant literature and the problems and suggestions it presents. It will also attempt to offer some prioritized guidelines of its own-involving, among other things, the use of more advanced technology.

Designing for Multiple Audiences

Current literature tells web designers to determine who their primary users are, then design the website for that group. However, in many cases a website must serve multiple audiences with very different needs. This article explores a few options that web designers have in creating a website that meets the needs of multiple audiences.

Designing for Overseas Chinese Readers: Some Guidelines

With its economy strong and its telecommunication infrastructure being improved rapidly in recent years, China has seen its Internet users rocketing to 22 million users today from about one million in 1997. A more web-savvy population also prompts government agencies and companies to embrace the Internet. The 'Government On-line' initiative launched in 1998 requires that the percentage of government agencies, either local or national, that establish websites should reach 80% by the end of 2000. Although it is doubtful that the goal has been attained, the country is definitely moving in that direction. At the same time, Chinese companies are rushing to get web sites built in order to promote their products and services.

The Information Design of Community-Building

What turns a Web space into a virtual community or community network? Sandra Maddox writes an introduction to the subject.

Internet Privacy: European and American Approaches

Privacy is a concern to all who use the Internet. This article will examine the different approaches that European and American governments have taken toward Internet privacy.

Localization: How to Make Your Site Go Round...

Localization is the 'process of altering a program so that it is appropriate for the area in which it is used.' The industry has come to see this issue is relevant to more than just software applications - indeed web sites have the same needs for accessibility via localization. Localization of a web site is done in order to meet the language and cultural needs of a target audience(s). Localization is the key to increasing the universality of the Web.

Make it Mobile

Handheld devices are everywhere. How can you start delivering Web content that can be viewed on these devices? This article discusses the challenges of writing for these devices, what specific issues are involved. Also included in this discussion is a case study of one organization going mobile and the challenges it faces.

The Prison That Was a Highway: The National Information Infrastructure

This paper explores two metaphors accompanying the birth of the Internet as a mass communication medium: Al Gore's Information Superhighway and Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon, a prison ruled with convert surveillance.

Style Sheets: Solid Presence, Expanding Future

With the release of Netscape 6.0 earlier this year, we finally have comprehensive support for the original Cascading Style Sheets specification (CSS1) from the two major browsers. Millions of people will continue to use older browsers, and designing for the Web may always be a complex and thorny proposition. But the gradual acceptance of CSS1, and the innovations promised by CSS2 and the still-unfinished CSS3, should motivate designers to add style sheets to their Web palettes.

TradeOff Cube: A Graphical User Interface Device

Decision support systems for multicriteria problems aim to help users understand the tradeoffs between their priorities (i.e., criteria weights) and their impact on the leading alternatives. Assignment of weights in existing systems requires multiple interface screens, so does analysis of the relationship between criteria weights and outcomes. A single-screen user interface device is proposed - a tradeoff cube - for declaration and viewing of all criteria weights - even if the hierarchy is multi-level and for examining the relationships between criteria weights and performance of alternatives. The tradeoff cube displays the entire hierarchy in a single base square subdivided into rectangles, each of which corresponds to a criterion. Criteria weights are adjusted by modifying the area of the rectangle. Valuations of alternatives are dynamically displayed in an adjacent stack bar chart, where stacks represent the lowest level criteria nodes. The dynamic interactive fluid process dramatically speeds up visualiz

Understanding the Tradeoffs: A Case Study of the University of Washington Homepage

Good web development requires knowing when and what tradeoffs should be made to best fulfill the needs of a broad audience. This article uses the University of Washington homepage to help you understand these tradeoffs.

Vannevar Bush and the WWW

Early Internet visionary Vannevar Bush is brought back to life for a fictional interview. Bush discusses how his early vision of the 'memex' might provide examples for today's information designers as they attempt to organize information and make it available to users.

Virus Alert: Understanding the Risks

Computer viruses are human created vices that will be around for as long as there are files and programs to corrupt. This article explains what types of viruses are out there, and how to prevent their spread.

Converting Legacy Documents to Hypertext

When I first came to Boeing, my workgroup delivered documents (stored either in Microsoft Word or XyWrite) in hardcopy format. As more modern document delivery options were made available to us, I convinced the customers, development staff and the management to adopt these new technologies to make documentation maintenance and delivery easier. I also converted over 1000 pages of documentation (such as language reference manuals, quick reference guides, installation guides and user guides) from strict text formatting to hypertext. This chapter will share what I learned with you. Here are some guidelines I recommend you follow when you begin to convert your paper-based documents to hypertext. Each guideline will be expounded later in this chapter.

The Language of Color

Color motivates, excites, draws attention and provides emphasis. It is one part of the coordinated effort to effectively communicate in information design. Color has long been thought to be only for embellishment or decoration. But if used intelligently, color can help give visual order to complex information. It can attract, enlighten and engage, and thus, add value.

A Quick Guide: Converting Print to Online

A Quick Guide: Converting Print to Online tells you how to convert print-based documents to an online format. This is a task that many writers do in their real-world work lives on a daily basis. However, there is not enough information available for how to handle the various conversions, so I wrote this brief guide. The document is saved as a Portable Document File (PDF). To view it, you need to have a copy of Adobe® Acrobat® Reader™ 3.0 or later software installed on your PC.

Visual Perception and Its Impact on Technical Communication

Past studies of visual perception have produced a wide library of information on what forms of information can be most easily absorbed by the user. In this paper, we consolidate the literature to provide guidelines on the most effective steps in text engineering, with applications in both printed documentation and website design.

Accessibility in Design

The next time you open a Web browser, try this: don’t use your mouse. Use your keyboard to navigate through your favorite site. You may very well find that keyboard navigation is not at all straightforward. On Yahoo.com, for example, you must press the Tab key over 75 times to get to all the options on the home page, and you must press the Tab key 10 times just to get to the main Search frame. Many sites, such as those that extensively use Macromedia Flash, aren’t accessible using the keyboard at all. The problems described here are problems of accessibility. In some cases, relatively minor changes can make the difference between an information design that can be used by anyone and a design that excludes people with certain disabilities – or preferences.

The Divorce of Probabalistic Mathematics from Forensic Rhetoric (and Why This Matters to Technical Communication)

This paper discusses some of the founding work in the field of probabalistic mathematics (that of Jakob Bernoulli, the seventeenth-century Swiss scientist). By discussing similarities between Bernoulli's formulation of the mathematics to evaluate the probability of any given event and the forensic (or courtroom) rhetorics which Bernoulli had studied in school, this paper suggests that the foundations of probabilistic mathematics might well be rooted in part in forensic rhetoric. This is important to technical communication because it historicizes the origin of positivism in mathematical technical discourses.

Emotional Design: Communicating an Experience

Today communicating is not always about a single message but an entire experience. One of the reasons the Web and the Internet has gained in popularity is not only because of its commercialization but because users can dynamically interact with it. Walker Gibson uses the term 'mock reader' to describe when a reader accepts the role within a story that an author has presented. The authors of Web sites, the designers, create an experience that immerses the site visitor or viewer into the Web site. A successful Web site designer has the ability to create a 'mock Web visitor' who becomes completely immersed emotionally in the site the designer has created.

The Marriage of Rhetoric and Pragmatics

The current proliferation of hermeneutic resources with a linguistic base--pragmatics, speech act theory, classical rhetoric theory, Burkean analysis, conversational analysis, Habermasian communicative action--is an embarras de richesse. Surely, at this point, we need, not another theory, but rather an attempt at synthesis, an attempt to turn this hermeneutic plentitude into a single theory. In this paper, we propose to take an initial step in this direction, to attempt to marry pragmatics and rhetoric. But given the theoretical exfoliation that has marked these areas, such a marriage can be managed only by imposing very strict limitations on the scope of our enterprise. We believe, however, that we can take a step in our preferred direction by addressing the more specific problem of whether the theory of Paul Grice, the father of pragmatics, is compatible with the theory of Aristotle, the father of rhetoric. We intend to do so by reconstructing Aritotelian rhetoric as a pragmatics.

On the Razor’s Edge: Languaging, Autopoiesis, and Growing Old

A. L. Becker’s 'modern philology' is an approach to discourse rooted in multifaceted explorations of particular texts: a line from Emerson, a Southeast Asian proverb, a Javanese shadow play. He explains 'autopoiesis' this way: 'One of the tenets of the gaggle of ideas calle ‘autopoiesis’ is that languaging is orientational, mostly. A says something to B -- and no ‘message’ is ‘transmitted’ -- rather what A says orients B (and him/herself, of course). But the orientation of A is not the orientation of B, except to the extent they have the same reactions to prior texts (lingual memories).

Site Structure

A site's structure defines how users find content and functions. In this section of the Edgar Web Design Guide, we examine how to design a site's structure, including developing an information hierarchy and designing transactional flows.

Strategies and Roadblocks to the Inclusion of Community Expertise in Academic Research

This talk presents a case study which followed a graduate course in public policy. This course attempted to construct knowledge around a community based problem in collaboration with community members. The talk covers both the successes and difficulties of this research project.

Surveying the City of Bits: Community, Commerce and the Virtual University

In contemporary business texts corporate sponsored on-line communities are described as central to the commercial development of the Internet, and to the imagined future of narrowcasting and mass customization in the wider world of marketing and advertising. My paper outlines a history of how on-line community has been represented within models of e-commerce. It critically examines the arguments, narratives and rhetorical strategies drawn on within contemporary business texts to represent on-line community. The paper also examines some of the connections that are emerging between commercial on-line community development, and commercial models of on-line education. My paper explores how many of the same organizations, strategies, and ways of representing on-line communities and community resources associated with corporate sponsored on-line communities are being reproduced in models of on-line education. I argue that strategic alliances ought to be made between academics and various community groups.

'Where The Hell Did I Put It?': Users in Heterogeneous Communications Environments Negotiating the Production, Distribution and Archiving of Knowledge Objects

A qualitative glance at how people in contemporary, heterogeneous communications environments--especially those involved in collaborative enterprises--were handling multiple communication events and the incoming and outgoing products of their communications, for example, texts, files, e-texts parked on shared file servers, e-texts parked on a user's hard-disk, web pages and useful http addresses, all of those sorts of things.

Designing (for) Ourselves and (for) Others

This presentation, by one of the best-known professors of technical communication in the U.S., traces how readers have been paid increasing attention, especially as they have become more active in text-making, rather than just text-reading. In particular, it talks about the rhetorical roles that readers assume in Web documents, and how those roles contribute to the success or failure of communication.

Edgar Web Design Guide

This site publishes papers on a wide range of issues in information architecture, from how to organize a site's structure to how to establish one's position as a webmaster inside a large organization.

The Orange Journal

The Orange Journal is a graduate student journal of Technical Communication. It strives to foster critical thinking and discussion on a wide variety of topics and issues important to technical communicators.