Home

Communicator Spring 2012

1. Claire Wood MISTC is a Product Development Technical Author at Sondex Wireline Ltd part of GE Oil amp Gas Downhole Technology Hampshire responsible for creating and editing the technical manuals for the down hole open hole and case hole tools W http www geoilandgas downholetechnology GE is a global sponsor for the London 2012 Olympics and the GE motto is magination at Work Communicator Spring 2012 MadCap Flare 8 a tool for the 21st century Ed Marshall provides a first look at MadCap s latest release Flare 8 is the latest version of the state of the art authoring and multi channel publishing tool produced by MadCap Software It has over 30 new features and hundreds of usability enhancements and fixes some of which I ve categorised in Table 1 Flare 8 provides the following new capabilities The User Interface UI now provides a Ribbon UI very similar to that of Microsoft Office This should make adopting Flare 8 as your new help authoring tool easier Experienced Flare users will find the new UI easier to navigate Table 1 Major new features and enhancements Category New features enhancements User Interface New output formats Page layouts PDF improvements TOC improvements Index improvements SEO enhancements Review process improvements New reports available New Ribbon UI Adding buttons to the Quick Access Toolbar Ul Themes Add Files dialog Su
2. eBooks eBooks are basically books in electronic form for viewing on readers like Amazon s Kindle or Barnes amp Noble s Nook or general purpose devices like smartphones or tablets with plug ins Some pros and cons of eBooks include Dedicated to one task displaying eBooks and can thus be optimised for it But facing competition from multi purpose devices like tablets which may kill the eBook reader category or not depending on which Statistics you read The EPUB standard doesn t yet support embedded indexes like those created using HATs You can create an index today but you have to create and link the index entries by hand Web apps The term refers to apps that run in a browser on a mobile device such as Safari on Apple iPhones The browser itself is the app what we normally think of as the app is instead the content in the browser Web apps fall into two categories which may affect your choice of tools if you re a technical communicator As is The app is viewed as it is in a browser without being redesigned for the peculiarities of the mobile device it s basically a web site For example see Figure 2 Both are useable although less so on the iPhone because of the need to scroll Mobile optimised The app is redesigned to take the mobile device s peculiarities into account For example see Figure 3 Both are usable but the mobile version has been technically redesign
3. From the Treasurer Why would anyone bother Peter Fountain explains what moved him to get involved with the ISTC Mystery The workings of the ISTC Council are a mystery to most members and are seldom expanded upon I suspect there is a perception that the voluntary role of a Council member is one of an unpaid unexciting and unrewarding activity Well it is unpaid exciting is a word that doesn t always spring to mind and in terms of rewarding that perhaps depends on your definition If money or public acknowledgment feature as part of your definition you may be disappointed But the fact is that there are many good reasons to become involved in the ISTC and I hope to outline some of them here My enlightenment was gradual however and I shall try to expand upon my justification for taking on the role of treasurer The build up When in 1983 I joined the world of what was then called technical publications working initially in the oil and gas business in Aberdeen I had not heard of the ISTC My boss at the time Gerry Gentle past ISTC president however had and he mentioned to new recruits that it existed and was worth joining The reasons were straightforward to me access to a wider pool of knowledge skills and information and a public Statement that I was interested in the profession as a whole So I joined one year later as a member My first involvement with the ISTC as more than just a member was in a
4. W www techsmith com Snagit 11 Ultimate screen capture and video recording tool Capture images and video directly off your computer screen All the tools you need to snag any image and enhance it or create a quick video of your computer screen Start communicating more efficiently G aam serospec ever org i i EET QBS Software Ltd GE 0650 DE MessageFecus gees digs Repa A Capture Edit Easily grab images off your computer Get their attention with callouts screen with a few clicks captions arrows and more Export your capture directly to Using mp4 format create screen PowerPoint send in an email or post videos for demos and share them to Screencast com instantly to YouTube and Facebook Contact a sales specialist at 08456 580 580 sales qbssoftware com Why not have a go www qbssoftware com snagit1 1 hum Pus ee ith 26 Agile methodology methodology A scrum without the opposition Rachel Houghton and John Burns explain how a local authority uses Scrum to remove the barrier between content authors and end users Scrum is one of many agile methodologies Product Backlog Introduction As a local authority IT Applications team we are seasoned players when it comes to managing projects Many of these projects include developing technical documentation for IT support personnel and the users of our systems This continual publication of documentation to support our customers p
5. that editorial conventions are founded on principles of effective rhetoric and usability The rationale behind all conventional editorial practices is explained very well I found this contextualisation to be a most helpful and engaging aspect of the book Real life examples Many of the examples in Technical Editing are very specific situated in real world organisations but the principles are general enough to apply to editing in any context Potentially diverse situations are always acknowledged so that the reader will understand the importance of good judgement over strict adherence to policies and procedures The reader is encouraged to Rely on careful alert reading more than on rules you can learn in a handbook Rude 2011 96 Understanding the guiding principles and best practices of editing is more important than memorising the intricacies of punctuation and grammar Contributing authors While Technical Editing fills a specific purpose as a textbook and reference for new editors the text also connects with technical communication scholarship Alongside Rude and Eaton s instruction Technical Editing includes the work of several contributing authors Carlos Evia David Dayton Bruce Maylath Laura Palmer and Heather Fisenbraun David Dayton s Chapter 6 reviews the pros and cons of electronic editing Dayton gives an overview of the programs and techniques most often used by editors when they choose to
6. The issue here of course is that we es Functional eee ee ei Figure 2 Stuck in the loop Communicator Spring 2012 28 Agile methodology methodology support many information systems from other parts of the organisation so how do we consolidate the needs of these other stakeholders against the needs of our product owner for social care Secondly we have also explored the notion of incremental delivery and its use in mitigating the risks of capturing an end user s requirement The issue that we are currently experiencing is that without careful management development teams can become involved in many iterations of adaptation potentially leading to project overrun as Figure 2 highlights AAA As a development team we are looking at Rachel Houghton BA Hons is a Business these new issues to further mature our ability Applications Support Consultant She develops with the Scrum methodology Our next article in and supports IT systems and is her division s end Communicator will discuss our answers to these user training lead for social care systems She is a questions and any others that arise from our TAP Training Accreditation Programme qualified professional practice in the interim learning and development professional and holds an honours degree in English References John M A Burns BSc Hons MSc MISTC is an IT manager leading a team that develops and supports a range of systems within the ICT Di
7. Tony won the ISTC Horace Hockley award in 2011 E tony self hyperwrite com as W www hyperwrite com Communicator Spring 2012 Creating mobile apps without coding Neil Perlin of Hyper Word Services explains why you should consider mobile applications When Windows Help Microsoft s pre HTML online help format appeared in 1988 authors had to work directly in the RTF Rich Text Format codes That changed in 1991 when Doc To Help and RoboHelp the first HATs Help Authoring Tools hid the code behind a GUI Graphic User Interface The web followed this path with authors typing HTML codes by hand in Notepad until GUI tools like Sausage Software s HotDog appeared around 1995 This code to GUI path is now repeating itself for mobile apps applications I predict that it will have the same effect as the early HATs and web tools changing authoring from an obscure task done by a few dedicated professionals to a general technical communication skill This article describes the code to GUI path for mobile app authoring tools First Pll define Neil was here Sackville the Ship Click here to tour the actual ship moored in Halifax Class Long Forecastle Flower Corvette Launched December 30 1541 At St John Shipbuilding amp Drydock Co St John New Brunswick Commissioned December 30 1941 rap Knowledge Base Windows Internet Explore Len e 3 5 a we com Dt a Zz P fe cot ve Fovertes Toce ep x Goghi
8. and other mobile devices If you consider YouTube com this then creates additional demand for real time multilingual audio visual All this online content creates a continuous demand for rapid translations from social media providers and users all over the world Another key challenge to localising social media is cost to have a human element translating continual content would be huge you d need a lot of translator hours Millions of new entries blogs and posts go online every day Even if an organisation does not have a proactive social media presence they still need to actively listen and monitor social media sites for content relating to them their brands and industry such as complaints product feedback and trends One of the unique qualities of social media is that it is multidirectional an organisation is a participant a consumer as well as a producer and publisher It s not just about the content you are pushing out but also the content that you and your business are attracting Once social media gets hold of an interesting titbit the effect is nuclear and your coverage could be worldwide If that content is being published multi lingually then do you understand the content as well as all the cultural nuances that may exist within it Most online content contained in standard corporate websites is static and the user interface Ul is typically controlled centrally o We have the expertise o We have the techno
9. correspondence Next time I see the material it is in the published journal The benefits As a proofreader for Communicator I get benefits as follows Preview of some articles those I receive as proof copy Satisfaction of seeing these as finished articles In the published journal I can read the articles I haven t proofed as something new I am involved in the preparation of a quality product Linda Robins BA Hons FISTC has worked in technical communication for many years as an editor author manager and occasional trainer E review manager istc org uk Change journall to journal of technical co Communicator Spring 2012 52 Book review review The whys and hows of technical editing Technical Editing By Carolyn D Rude and Angela Eaton ISBN 978 0205786718 Longman Fifth Edition 2010 Paperback 432 pages 60 99 Reviewed by Amelia Chesley Texas Tech University Carolyn Rude s aa Technical a Editing now in its fifth edition is a wonderful introductory text for technical communication students and instructors With Angela Eaton s experience additions to this newest edition bring the book s approach more in line with the technologies and situations facing editors today The book now includes more modern technical examples and references discussion of freelancing details pertaining to editing websites and an updated Instructor s Manual As
10. ena Searching fm i Ena CAD ata Import fro 2 Generating Output xral oi Section Two E Section 2 book o Sub Section 1 E ena Working with Experiments fm ena Items and Experiments fro ena Working with Structures fra oi Sub Section 2 Li E El Pages Figure 1 Adobe FrameMaker TOC with multiple folders groups and books files in groups does not change the hierarchy of those files Adding content to folders The physical act of adding content is all done from the book s toolbar icons with icons for adding folders and groups You add files to your TOC in the normal way by placing files at the end of the selected folder Personally Pd like the choice of where to place a file but you can easily move them later to the desired location There are limitations to what can be added to a folder You can add mif xml or fm files as shown in the Group One group in Figure 1 The only other consideration is that each file name added to a book must be unique Adding a child book You can also add books within books to act as a placeholder inside the parent book These can contain either unstructured book files or DITA maps However should you need to change the content of a child book this must be performed from its own book file Bear this in mind when performing a find and replace or spellcheck operation The same applies when updating pagination and cross references as this will only work on files
11. engineers have often told me they will seek out answers from their peers even if the same content might have been in a document elsewhere rather than try to dig it out themselves Tomorrow s help Noz Urbina discusses how we could soon be delivering both context sensitive assistance and user generated content inside the product interface This article will demonstrate how socially enabling task oriented content and embedding it deeper into the product experience can benefit our content consumers be they customers or colleagues We will look at an example application that shows the benefit of embedding help and theorise as to how structured modular content enables this type of working We will also see how we can improve our technical communications by analysing the workflow of DJs and Hip Hop producers Organisations today take it as a matter of course that social communications are vital for competitiveness and are learning or have learnt that the original applications of sales advertising and marketing were only the beginning Post sales support and ongoing usage communications and relationship management areas where technical communication plays a vital role are being brought online and using social media In this article we will address some of the what where why and how of socially enabled and embedded content systems for technical communication What it is not Social media is often conside
12. i Want to like or comment on ihis pagi To mered wath dela WE you seed be aga up for Espebock tree ee dete v Seeks are bic for Lu aD sti 28 ry tne 132 967 ir ra 15 510 kg ee ee Liri trairi habe Ausra vu Leeri by bl AA A duties 170 faire i sbn Amra pudo a Poe Eng LE Minka Praia haiga depa Pau o bismig Desir Page lee Orem Emay Tema PA Figure 1 AutoCAD WS Facebook landing page Communicator Spring 2012 At that time social networking was just a term for something that younger people did to keep abreast of their friends latest updates or listen to the latest new music Over the last five years the way we all use the internet has changed and social networking has become integral to that Social networking started happening several years before Facebook and Twitter through message boards and forums but that has quickly progressed with new technology to include the creation of online profiles chronicling people s lives the ability to connect with people who have the same niche interests worldwide the ability to join online events and daily conversations between brands and their customers Facebook and Twitter are widely seen as the public face of social networking but recent forays into the space by Google and the growing popularity of professional networks like LinkedIn and Yammer make this an exciting but ever changing area In the few months since I presented about this subject at T
13. while organisation specific encyclopaedias focus only on specific domains of knowledge directly relevant to that organisation Glossaries lexical databases and terminology databases Haussteiner 2004 suggests that improving access to terminological resources is an area of increasing importance in the language industry as consistent terminology forms the basis of high quality translations Zerfaf 2004 and Rico and Torrejon 2005 concur stating that terminology management is a key component of the translation industry Despite the benefits of terminology management the process can however be time consuming and costly Hutchins 1998 Haussteiner 2004 Glossaries are useful terminological resources for both authors and translators Bankole 2006 Donato 2010 and are available in print The Computer Glossary for example or as electronic documentation a GLO glossary dictionary file for example online or as glossary software Generic thesauruses offer definitions for general terms used in specific domains as in the definitions for computer software terms in the PSDic com glossary for example rather than for the specialised terminology used for a particular product They may be monolingual Unicode org glossary or multilingual PSDic com glossary a multilingual glossary is a list of terms in one language that are defined in one or more other languages or are glossed by synonyms or at least near synonyms in other lang
14. AFP Getty Images interchangeability and transferring as many tasks as possible to automation The semi automated assembly line approach is the one that should be taken with DITA and XML If we try to incorporate all the features of the coachbuilding way of producing documents we will lose many of the efficiency and quality control benefits of the new DITA and XML methodology As well as vision investment of time and equipment is required to move from coachbuilding to assembly line to automation of drudgery but that investment is worthwhile Postscript Model Ts were originally offered in a blue red green and grey From 1913 black was the only option More than 30 different types of black paint were used on different components and black was the cheapest most durable and easiest to colour match Ford almost went broke when they tried to produce multiple products with multiple options in the 1930s Only retained profits from the Model T saved the company It is estimated that as many as 150 000 Model Ts still exist with perhaps 20 000 still on the road Based in Melbourne Australia Dr Tony Self FISTC has over 30 years of experience as a technical communicator He founded HyperWrite a company providing training and consultancy in structured authoring Help systems DITA and technology strategy He is a member of the OASIS DITA Technical Committee and an adjunct teaching fellow at Swinburne University Australia
15. Fountain the ISTC Treasurer in his report Upgrading membership Why not upgrade your membership As an experienced technical communicator the fact that the cost of being a Fellow FISTC is now the same as being a Member MISTC gave me the incentive to upgrade I filled in the Aamizar Association of Transkition HbR LEA EE I TI Pane We re talking your language Our experienced teams work with technical authors in major companies worldwide providing a reliable professional language service in all disciplines grade transfer form and sent my 15 administration fee to the ISTC office Membership approved my application If you ve been a Member for several years why not apply to upgrade to Fellow in recognition of your experience and continuing contribution to technical communication For more information and a grade transfer form contact the ISTC office istc istc org uk Feedback and comments Pm always asking everyone who contributes to Communicator if they ve received any feedback and sadly the answer is normally very little I know people do read the articles so in this issue if you like an article have questions about an article disagree or just want to comment why not contact the contributor or email the Letters page communicator istc org uk And finally With all the talk of social media I finally decided to setup my own Twitter account follow me ISTC_Journal You can also comment
16. Information processing systems User documentation and cover information for consumer software packages ISO IEC 18019 2004 Software and systems engineering Guidelines for the design and preparation of user documentation for application software BS 7649 1993 Guide to the design and preparation of documentation for users of application software and AS NZS 4258 1994 Software user documentation process These standards have been incorporated and revised in the development of the new series Those original standards have now been or are in the process of being cancelled and withdrawn The newly completed suite will comprise the following Systems and Software Engineering standards I SO IEC IEEE 26511 2011 Requirements for managers of user documentation intended for use by managers of user documentation projects or organisations with information designers and documentation developers It provides requirements for strategy planning performance and control for documentation managers It specifies procedures for managing user documentation throughout the software lifecycle It also includes requirements for key documents produced for user documentation management including documentation plans and documentation management plans ISO IEC IEEE 26512 2011 Requirements for acquirers and suppliers of user documentation intended for use in acquiring or supplying either printed or electronic on screen
17. Inspection N Iteration for Incremental Delivery Functional Increment Figure 1 Iterative development Communicator Spring 2012 management approaches Anna Haberko in her Winter 2011 Communicator article on Agile Synergy outlined the agile manifesto alongside the overarching ethos of agile as an approach to project management hence we will only provide a brief recap here Essentially Scrum is a framework for developing and sustaining complex products Schwaber at al This brief definition alone hints that the method can address challenging products and assist in their maintenance two of the main issues that we described in the introduction Before we describe what the Scrum method contains to assist in addressing complexity and achieving sustainable products let us revisit the agile manifesto Cohn 1 Individuals and interactions over processes and tools 2 Working software over comprehensive documentation 3 Customer collaboration over contract negotiation 4 A team that responds to change as opposed to following a plan These value statements embody the Scrum propositions and ethos We will take each one in turn discuss it further and explain why we feel it is adding value to our engagement with users to identify their requirements Firstly Scrum focuses on fostering productive working relationships between members of the project team The belief here is that some organisations when p
18. Parent topics and all of the Heading 375 r a ri i i Ss under it become subtopics Parent topics su raren pies automatically include Gon A FF de 226 Also links to Subtopics See k z ls e Managing Related Topics for more information Printed mas i Anted manual cross references with paga bere are aut i ea Page numbers are automatically 3 converted to hyperlinks Live Links in aoe b 2 nline Help Also manuals can be set up toi clude both hyperlinks and page bay DOCTOHELP COM Available through one of our Valued Partners GREY MATTER QBS SOFTWARE LTD COMPONEN TSOURCE www greymatter com referra componentone Www qbssoftware com componentone www componentsource com componentone 44 0 1364 654 100 44 0 8456 580 580 44 0 800 581 111 2012 ComponentOne LLC All rights reserved All products and brand names are trademarks and or registered marks of their respective holders 30 Howto How to be a Technical Communicator Hints and tips for breaking into or returning to work by Claire Wood SSS Back up your voluntary work with a relevant course AAA Make time for yourself all you need is a couple of hours a week Communicator Spring 2012 February 2009 changed my life forever I was made redundant from my job and I became my mother s carer almost overnight What does this have to do with technical communication Answer the medical experts told me P d have to sta
19. Technical Communication e supply of technical authors e managed outsourced teams e information amp document design e modular writing training e tools amp process strategy e project management e software usability testing www 3di info com 44 0 1483 211533 contact 3di info com Communicator competition winners Thank you to everyone who entered the Snagit competition in the Winter issue of Communicator The answer was 2 Snagit is for taking snapshots of your screen The competition winners were drawn by Steve Reynolds MISTC and are Mark Allen John Chisholm Dave Herbert Mike Unwalla Peter Vallender They each win a copy of Snagit Thank you TechSmith for providing the prizes AN TechSmith Localization amp Translation o software products amp online help o website amp e learning content interactive amp audio content e technical 8 compliance documents e multi lingual translation e scalable localization testing e process design amp consultation di Communicator Spring 2012 A O Online groups http finance groups yahoo com group ISTC_Discussion general discussion forum for members of the ISTC http finance groups yahoo com group ISTC_IASIG independent authors special interest group forum for members of the ISTC Intentionally blank In the past service manuals sometimes contained the phrase This page is intentionally blank Is the
20. appmakr com These tools hide the coding under a GUI skin For example see Figure 6 It s a busy screen but it s all GUI To illustrate what it spares you from Figure 7 is the properties pane for the Add Your Own Listing button just above the graphic Figure 6 And Figure 8 shows what you d be entering if you weren t using a GUI authoring tool Knowing how to work in code is useful but the GUI approach is invariably faster more consistent more error free and more syntax compliant Figure 9 is another GUI tool example the new app screen from iBuildApp m ER gt DS r zr a Texas BBO i BBO ir Teras seems to Consist pamanty E a Sn of bee ath sausage in seconc place BBO in Texas sems to consist primarily Of Deef with sausage in second place and some Tings end some engs the berbacoa de d know about cade f vou us Jon wart to know MODA Here s a variable the world s best BBO comes from Any place that looks hice tws has to be good in Elgin Southside Market Southside Mar we AS ES RRA Texas BBO doesnt mciude sauce except when n does DA VESTY A dd as Aid a PA e MAA MA a e AAA Figure 3 Online reference guide created in Flare and shown on a desktop monitor and partly redesigned for viewing on a mobile device Flare s mobile emulator METE 10 57 AM ao Figure 4 Barbecue Figure 5 Reference guide to the periodic table restaurants in Austin Te
21. been so supportive and enthusiastic towards Dave resigned During the progress of these events Dave s new manager s attitude changed from support to indifference to hostility to there s an organisational change coming that I can t tell you about let s wait and see The change did come but Dave missed it because he was on sick leave after a major operation Dave received a phone call at home from HR telling him about the changes and assuring him there were no redundancies He was being moved into the change management department to work alongside the training manager under a line manager who d previously been a project manager It seemed like a good move for him and to a position of influence for getting the technical documentation sorted out However on returning to work Dave found that his job had changed beyond all recognition they did not want him to do any technical documentation work or to review the documentation strategy they wanted him to be a project manager Dave s manager suggested that Dave s past experience made him suitable for the new role That may well have been true but it completely ignored the fact that it was a job he didn t want He hated the new work he was given he had no interest or enthusiasm for it and it soon began to show with poor results and complaints about what he was doing It was clear from a number of fraught interviews with his new line manger that they were headin
22. click on a specific term or feature in the software it automatically opens up the relevant page in the Flare Help system In Finale we have added another dimension of the context sensitive functionality based on whether the user is connected to the Web or working offline Customers are directed to the Web based Help by default But if the user is offline or if the user chooses a locally installed version of the Help is used This was accomplished by hooking alias files up to Finale and it provides a seamless experience Search it your way We try to make finding information in our Help systems as easy as possible by offering multiple ways that users can look up information The Help system portal for each of our applications includes a Google like search field where users can enter keywords to search for topics Unlike our previous tool Flare enables users to get the same results no matter what browser they use This was important since our customers use PCs and Apple computers with various browsers One particularly nice feature in the Help for our Finale is a visual index Users can click on any element on an interactive page of music such as notes or time signatures and they will be directed to the appropriate Help topic This is important for supporting our customers who range from students and novice composers to experienced professionals We have also set up search filters that make it easier for customers to narrow
23. convenient but unrealistic most mobile devices will be less powerful To realistically test an app on a phone you must submit it to Apple s App Store or Android Market and wait anywhere from a day to several weeks while your app is processed And it may be rejected To deal with this Viziapps offers a downloadable app that lets you preview your app on your mobile device with a few mouse clicks in a few seconds But you have to understand the shortcomings of emulators and the details of the submission process to understand what the Viziapps preview app offers So although the tools may be easy to use mechanically the complexity lies in understanding the features they offer Consider also that these tools are server based You re authoring over the network This means the tool may slow down or even log you out depending on network traffic It s not a big problem though you ll want to save your work often log back in and keep working But it does ja take getting used to if you re accustomed to authoring tools sitting calmly on your C drive The pricing is also very different from the technical communication world Use of the authoring platform is free The vendors make money in other ways such as charging to get your app into the App Store or Market or by hosting the app consulting services to help you create your app or by creating it for you So you may need to evaluate the cost in different ways than for t
24. different topics and all representing the brand and the company At Welocalize we have a a number of Twitter accounts for example Welocalize driven by the US and WelocalizeJPN driven by Japan The content on both Twitter accounts is totally unrelated but what they have in common is that both are written by people who are passionate about Welocalize and who are able to communicate a consistent corporate message in that medium Many organisations have the resources to post regular blogs but not to translate them The localisation challenge Translation of social media content can potentially be problematic because of its sheer volume and that has great cost implications all round There is great value to an organisation s social media content because participants interact on a more direct culturally attuned level Adapting social media content for different target audiences may require a lot more than translation For example someone based in the USA may have very different opinions from someone based in Germany on what qualities are important in an automobile Simply translating an opinion may not translate the message and justify the author s intent This poses a challenge when considering localising the published content The sheer volume and speed at which much of this content is published also creates a localisation challenge real time content is published 24 hours a day all over the world from PCs laptops smartphones
25. documentation It is independent of documentation development management tools or methodologies It provides requirements for information items used in the acquisition of user documentation products the Acquisition Plan Document Specification Statement of Work Request for Proposals and the Proposal It also discusses the use of a Documentation Management Plan and a Document Plan as they arise in the acquisition and supply processes ISO IEC IEEE 26513 2009 Requirements for testers and reviewers of user documentation intended for use by testers reviewers and other related roles including usability testers documentation reviewers information designers and architects It specifies processes for use in testing and reviewing of user documentation It is not limited to the test and review phase of the lifecycle but includes activities throughout the information management and documentation management processes It also provides the minimum requirements for the testing and reviewing of user documentation including both international standards eE 61 printed and on screen documents used in the work environment by the users of systems software It applies to printed user manuals online help tutorials and user reference documentation ISO IEC IEEE 26514 2008 Requirements for designers and developers of user documentation intended for use by documentation designers and developers including information design
26. down their search results In Finale there are four filters Finale basics tutorials encyclopaedia and reference Users of our applications can also go straight to the Help menu or use the table of contents Finally we continually work to make the topics of highest interest to our customers easy to find For instance we are using Google Analytics to track Web hits to the SmartMusic and the Finale Help systems This enables us to identify the topics that are currently most important to customers If there are several hits to a particular topic we can make them more prominent Now we know when the customer cares more about download issues than microphone issues That ability to respond and dynamically update our Web content with Flare is just fantastic Allin one Over the years we have moved towards using our Help system for each product as a central location for the resources our customers need with the exception of the short quick reference guide For example in the autumn of 2011 we completed a major new release of Finale With it we produced a significantly expanded Help system which brings the Web Help files tutorials and videos together in one searchable place The videos have proved to be a particularly effective means of showing customers how to use our applications Flare has made it easy to integrate them into the Help system topics for Finale and SmartMusic ai gt map bagel Reger met een oi o el oe i
27. e Pero Me Oe Bowes Be Aces Grew Pan amp Orem gt Groome Gy Mactan Kreniedge Bare amp o me gt Pages Seley Toes Y Tweet 0 an a Welcome to the MadCap Software Knowledge Base Ane tMaoCas Sofware s Knowiecoe Base De used lor any S8ues elated to al released verseons of Our software Tre MacCap Software Technical Support Knowedge Base is a valuadie up to date resource n trying to resohe your protien Our Knowledge Base system provides a fiend use Echo interface table of contents and search feature i Mobile A version of the MadCap Knowledge Base optimized for mobi aray F 8 11 AM Feedback The MadCap Knowledge Dase taxes advantage of MadCap Software s d pur Base by lesung comments Please note that comments are moderated CA Another IB resource that able tc yOu a our oine forum commu Tre MadCap Sofware onime forum is located at Welcome to the MadCap Software Knowled MadCap Software s Knowledge Base will released versions of our software Figure 2 MadCap Software s knowledge base on a desktop monitor and viewed in Safari on an iPhone Communicator Spring 2012 mobile since the definition isn t as obvious as it seems Then Pll discuss GUI mobile app tools in general and look at three currently available tools Finally I ll discuss possible effects on technical communication Categories of mobile For this article Pll look at three categories of mobile eBooks web apps and native apps
28. forthcoming issues of Communicator I was really pleased to meet keen technical communicators willing to give up their time and write an article for Communicator There were several articles in the Winter 2011 issue from speakers as well as this issue I was also pleased to be able to find a common theme between a few of their articles In this issue Here are some of the highlights from this issue bedfordtranslations As you will have already seen on the front cover we have articles on social media These articles are well timed as two years ago there was a Communicator Spring 2010 Special Supplement on Social Media The articles start with Noz Urbina discussing the future of help by socially enabling and embedding content Lee Mullin explains how to take advantage of social media and Louise Law looks at the implications of localisation and translation These articles lead into Matt Dyer s contribution about including video in help files The latest version of Flare has just been released and Ed Marshall has a first look at it For more on MadCap software Matthew Ellison has started a new regular column For something completely different why not read Tony Self s fascinating article on comparing motor car manufacturing to technical communication If you re thinking of a career in technical communication or returning to work Claire Wood gives lots of hints and tips She also discusses volunteering as does Peter
29. found in the WebHelp format The URL shown in the browser points to the topic being shown That is the URL changes with each topic that you display The output is completely frameless which allows search engines to crawl and find your content on the web You can further optimise the Search Engine Optimisation SEO to make it easier for web crawlers to find your help To do this you generate a sitemap when you compile your project which indexes your entire output The output looks more like current UIs such as Google Chrome The Search field appears in the upper right corner of your help similar to current browsers UIs Also search results display the text that is near the search term not just a list of topics This can help you more quickly find the topic you want Accessibility has been improved through the capability to use lt nav gt and lt article gt tags Dropdowns popups and so on display more smoothly than in previous releases The output is completely customisable by the user Figure 4 shows the traditional WebHelp output and Figure 5 shows the new HTMLS5 output Like the rest of Flare s output formats it is easy to generate the HTML5 output It is as simple as selecting HTML5 as your target specifying a pre defined HTML5 skin to your project and building your project I found that the default options for the HTML5 output worked fine out of the box That is I didn t have to
30. has several reports of master classes from the 2011 International Soctety of Bassists 158 2011 Conference The reports were written by Ed Marshall Bass Master Class Paul Ellison Copyright 2011 Edward Marshall Paul is a professor of double bass at Rice University Paul sees master classes as laboratories with a bot of collaboration Figure 6 New EPUB output 34 Product review review MadCap also includes a major facelift with the new ribbon UI The product looks modern and sleek and is another leap forward in usability and out of the box experience for new users Whether you are an experienced Flare user or a new user having a familiar UI makes learning a new tool or finding options easier Specifically the new HTML5 output not only enables us to use the features in the new HTML5 standard but also updates the look and feel of WebHelp output The new HTML5 output emulates the appearance of contemporary browsers such as Google Chrome Although we focus on producing technically accurate information regardless of the output format looking current can be a selling point to management Producing accurate information in old deprecated formats can leave a bad impression with potential customers The new EPUB output enables us to produce output for the explosive growth in mobile devices As an independent consultant I have personally received a number of enquiries over the past year about producing some form of onli
31. if you are an experienced Flare user Take advantage of Flare 8 s support of the new HTML5 standard to produce a browser based help with a current look and feel and improved accessibility and SEO capabilities Produce eBooks that will be read primarily on mobile devices The EPUB output works very well with the default Flare settings Take advantage of several usability enhancements in Flare 8 These points are summarised in more detail in the following paragraphs Bass Master Class Paul Ellison Copyright 2011 Edward Marshall E i Fea Paul ls 4 professor of double bass at Alice Unbversiny minihry of dar Paria A A a a Paul peer mates clans aa laboratories with a lot oi collaboration Paul relayed the stories about the fastest gans in the American Old wel The cemeteri n were full of iia people who thought they were the fastest gun in the west Art is about pour own personality mol who is fastest Paul opined that you sould focus on how you play not what piece po play People come to Rear you play Rot a apecihe piece oF prograra He suppelted a starting posture of holding the bass siraight up that ip vertical to the Poor amd playing eighth notes Then tilt Eb bares back or forward po bid weight to your bow helps with spencate Wath yur biw aton eipecialliy at te tip H par a i Bnw Fold aa betian ke drawing circle on paper Figure 5 New HTML5 output Preface This project
32. is do I know anyone there Having friends in other countries makes foreign contracts much easier to accept It is due entirely to professional membership that I can rent a room in Brussels for example from a friend who I met through an association There are enough things to think about when travelling so a ready address with all the trimmings is a huge benefit I can get the low down on everything that s going on attend association events and have an interpreter on hand to explain the unfathomable local logic the regional habits that are not mentioned in travel guides When working abroad for example it can be life saving to have an expat friend who can tell me whether cars will stop for pedestrians at zebra crossings or not The onsite scenario Writing the content for documentation on a foreign site is much the same everywhere and although the tools may vary the user interface is generally in English Working with US UK or another variety of English doesn t pose a problem either even if some oddities such as parameterize and zeroize make me cringe Applying style guides is another matter especially when updating existing documentation that has clearly been written by different authors using a variety of styles Contracts tend not to include the time to edit for consistency and in the least satisfying scenario I apply whatever styles I have been given to my text then shut my eyes and hope fo
33. need to move your microphone closer to your instrument Some instruments have alternate loc ations for microphone placement See the help article on microphone placement You may be using the wrong microphone Far example d you have a bulian microphone SmariMlusic may be trying to hear the signal from thes mic even you have a SmartMusac microphone positioned correctly for your instrument Make sure you have Selected the correct microphone on the Settings screen E you are having trouble connecting or Seting up your microphone watch these vdeos Microphone setup Microphone troubleshooting If you continue to have problems in SmartMusic such as not beng able to hear yourself m recordings or Seeing poor assessment results contact Customer Support Pe Si lineed help Contact us Figure 3 The online SmartMusic guide on microphone troubleshooting includes embedded videos to provide more detail to users Communicator Spring 2012 BY case study section headers Both are great features for helping to guide users Dynamic information updates While visual appeal and easy access to knowledge are important ultimately the most critical requirement is the timely delivery of relevant information to our customers This is an area where Flare really shines In fact one of our core Help publishing considerations is that both products include an application that resides locally but this or associated online components are upd
34. on Communicator in this way Hori E F Katherine Judge FISTC E commissioning editor istc org uk Tw ISTC_Journal www bedfordtrans co uk E i b PR a 4 f v Translation manuals patents documentation Publishing your preferred application Localisation software amp marketing information Globalisation your web presence 19 19a ST ANDREWS ROAD BEDFORD MK40 2LL UNITED KINGDOM TEL 01234 271555 FAX 01234 271556 Communicator Spring 2012 We comply with the new Translation Products Standard BS EN 15038 n Putting Communicator online Contributing to Communicator Would you like to propose an article for a future 2012 issue of Communicator We are always looking for feedback ideas suggestions and contributions If you work in an industry that isn t software get in touch We d love to have some articles from people who work in other areas of technical communication The forthcoming Technical Communication UK event in October TCUK12 has a Specialist stream on usability and accessibility Why not propose an article Getting in touch commissioning editor istc org uk It was decided a couple of years ago that we really should be keeping up with the times and Communicator should be available online to the general public The typesetter carried out the necessary research and put forward three proposals We decided to go with a downloadable PDF version of each issue ho
35. or ignored most of you reading this will already have an account on there but whether you use it professionally or just to keep up with friends and family is another matter In the last few months Facebook has changed its model to make it more accessible to companies doing more than just advertising their wares There has been an overhaul of Pages for brands with improved analytics showing how far a post has reached how engaged people are with a post and ways to identify trends and demographics Other big changes to Facebook over the last year include the introduction of the Timeline and the Ticker Timeline is a visual representation of the user s life bringing together events photos and places people have been to It is expected that Facebook will allow brands to change their pages to a Timeline layout too building a picture of the company and the chance to present a different story to a user The Ticker is a bar on the right hand side of the page which chronicles what your friends are doing at any one time At the time of writing the third part of Facebook s strategy is being completed Believed to be named Actions it has already been introduced at a small level with applications like Spotify and The Guardian allowing users to see when a friend has read an article or listened to a song These could in the future allow companies to add a whole range of actions to what users do on their websites or in their
36. phrase used now Some members think that the phrase has no use If the page has numbers then the phrase does not supply useful information to the reader Also if a page has the phrase then the page is not blank However in highly regulated documents the use of intentionally blank is usual and important If a reader sees a blank page at the end of a section possibly they will ask Is there some missing information The phrase is used in military publications for example One member is the manager of operation support for an airline She explained that in the airline industry intentionally blank pages are used for operations manuals as standard practice In British Standards the phrase is used if there is a blank page between the Foreword and the Scope or if there is a blank page at the end of the document before the back cover The phrase is applicable to the primary text Because the phrase is in the footer there is no inconsistency For loose leaf documents a reader will want to know if a new replacement page is correct In this situation a page date is probably also necessary Members suggested the following alternatives to the phrase This page is intentionally blank Your Notes The phrase gives the Same message as the intentionally blank message This page is provided to facilitate double sided printing Programming skills of technical communicators A software com
37. real scrum where two opposing sides are competing to a scrum without opposition where two sets of stakeholders are working more closely to reach the desired goals Firstly the users of our software are subject to the supplier s frequent upgrades These upgrades range from fairly minimal changes within a feature set to significant changes that include new features dramatic changes to existing features and possibly a change to the software s look and feel Such changes create an administrative overhead to already busy practitioners whose time for self empowerment is continually marginalised through the demands of their profession In addition to the challenges of learning software there are obligations on those delivering training and materials to provide a documentation set that is inclusive and provides each user with an equal opportunity of empowerment This means that learning and development professionals have to elicit the preferred learning styles of each member of the target audience and make any necessary adjustments for specific needs Furthermore the landscape of learning and development has changed The almost default and prominent model of classroom based training is just one option amongst an array of new media training interventions These options are now ubiquitous and thus are increasingly becoming an expected service offering The development team faces pressures to respond however Scrum is starting to help
38. to the eBooks I viewed PDF improvements A very useful improvement for PDF output is that you can now customise PDF settings in Flare For example you can select the following PDF options from Flare 8 Insert named destinations in content link to named destinations in existing PDFs through the hyperlink UI and convert existing bookmarks to named destinations on output Improved page breaks with content in tables and divs when spanning pages Source Control T Home Insert View Project Review Tools E ove Times New Roman 12pt i ES a x x oe s FB Bee X Delete B JUXM BA 2 A Paste Font Paragraph Paste Figure 2 Detail of the Home menu using the light blue ribbon theme Figure 3 Ribbon with custom icons added to the Quick Access Toolbar Toc Ale amp sf eee Se international Society of Basis 21 Frontidatier i eg STO Bass Master Class Paul Ellison A Pretace Copyright 2011 Edward Marshall Teistory of kan Bass Bob Senicrope Pawl is a prolessor of double bags at Rige University Alas Maries Class Peter Dom nque dh Orchestra Master Class Coin Con Paul sees master classes as laboratories with a bot of Solo Master Class David Moore cnllaborsiion index Paul relayed the stories about the fastest gura n the American old west The oemeberi s were full of propie whe thought they were the fabes gun in the west Art ig about pour own personality not
39. up I joined the quarterly Council meetings which were held in London and Letchworth and became a contributor as planned One thing that I was disappointed with was the availability of up to date salary and benefits information for technical communicators so I took on the role of the Salary Survey This proved popular to members who partly due to being in a niche often needed to benchmark their overall package For the 2012 survey results see the Summer issue of Communicator And the Treasurer One day in 2002 the then treasurer found it impossible to continue in the post and resigned Following a conference call via my mobile while working in Scotland I was worried that the treasurer s post was not being filled I let it be known that I had a few ideas of how I thought we should do things differently and soon found I was the only voice in the discussion I offered to take on the role of treasurer on the understanding that I could not attend any face to face Council meetings due to working away from home five days a week my family got the other two days It was agreed and then I had to tell the wife Commitment Some things require effort and as the ISTC strives to do more with the limited funds we have this inevitably means spending time organising things Much of the Council communication is carried out electronically and through the office of our administrators ASL who do an excellent job of provid
40. when is haben Paul opined that you should focus on how you play mot wal phos you play People come to hear you play not a specific piece r progriara Hesuggevted a parting posture of hodding the bara straight wp that vertical to the floor and playing eighth moaned Then tilt the basi back or forward bo add weight to your bow helps with apicata Waach your bow action especially an the tp H your bow hae an bitia like crewing circ on paper with pendil that i not good lt ls much better to draw a straight bow You will get a much better and more even sound on both up bows and doran bows specially if you ane playing fast parsages A full length mirror ip an bvehuable gid in diagnosing habits that bold you ack Figure 4 Traditional WebHelp output Communicator Spring 2012 Communicator Spring 2012 Set more initial view values including collapsing bookmarks opening in full screen mode set the default page layout view and show the file name or document title in the title bar Summary As in previous releases of MadCap Flare Version 8 provides significant enhancements in usability as well as major new features that meet the changing demands of technology on technical writers You might want to upgrade to Flare 8 or switch to Flare 8 from another help authoring tool if you want to Use the new ribbon UI to make your Flare learning curve shorter as a new user or make your navigation of the tool easier
41. 8 The term author memory was first coined by Daniel Brockmann in 1997 Brockmann 1997 Allen 1999 although Jeffrey Allen conducted some experiments relevant to the area as early as 1995 Allen 1999 Author memory operates from the basic principle that when data is standardised at the terminological and the sentence levels it can be re used by multiple team members in their efforts to produce and reproduce written documentation Allen 1999 A single topic or paragraph may be reused in different documents or across different publishing channels Allen 1999 Hurst 2008 while enterprises such as Caterpillar Inc and General Motors have managed to reuse entire files to develop brand new types of documentation Allen 1999 The AM itself is created by marking up source text with metadata such as identifiers for text units that provides opportunities for text reuse Allen 1999 Cobbold and Pontes 2007 Although relatively little empirical research has been conducted on the use of AM several researchers highlight the benefits of using this type of resource in the authoring process Murphy et al 1998 state that AM reduces the time and costs associated with the authoring process while Brockmann 1997 Cobbold and Pontes 2007 and Hurst 2008 believe that it also simplifies and improves authoring consistency by facilitating text reuse during the lifecycle of a document Hurst 2008 mentions additional benefits of author memory
42. A A A O O O A A A A E A lS OVER 30 NEW FEATURES AND HUNDREDS OF USABILITY IMPROVEMENTS INTRODUCING FLAR Page gt 5 Mew Frame k Filo Hime View insert Format Project Riria Esih Tatio Tools a ee ee Te r Debis Bows Abe Romi Bhs Comma fF BB show Grimes A io Merge Celis Spit Cots BM tatie Propertes Pele the Right de Cienr Cots cen Content Sty s Me Cet Fomating ura HTML5 OUTPUT SLEEK NEW Ul HIGH END PRINT Completely Frameless Customizable Modern Multi theme User Interface for New and Improved High End Print Search Engine Optimized HTML5 Output Enhanced Authoring and Ease of Use Features and Enhancements MOBILE PUBLISHING FREE REVIEW PLUS Direct Publishing to Mobile Devices Now e Free Review and Annotation for DITA 1 2 Support Dozens of Usability Including Support for ePub Format Managers and Subject Matter Experts Improvements and Much More DOWNLOAD A FREE 30 DAY TRIAL MADCAPSOFTWARE COM s All rights reserved MadCap Software the MadCap Software logo and 7 H tre arks of MadCap Software Inc in the United States and or other countries Other f l lelelerele ers W software Publishing Imagine the scenario You manufacture 10 similar products The documentation has evolved and there is now a separate manual for each one You are responsible for researching writing and publishing the content in 21 languages You meet your
43. CUK 2011 there have been overhauls of the interfaces of all the major social networks and new strategies aimed at making the links between consumers and brands even closer Content is king Whichever social media you use make sure you have a linked up strategy to direct users to high quality content Without content of interest to your users you will lose people s attention and your work will not spread beyond an email shot or in product link Part of the value of social networking is that other people will do a lot of the work for you recommending your content to reach a wider audience if the content is right My background is in software support and services and in music promotion in the music industry creating interesting content that people want to share is fairly straightforward a catchy song an interesting music video streaming of live concerts re posting interviews and press pictures All this content is directed towards one aim selling music Whatever sector you are in work out your aim and who you want to target If it s to improve the user installation experience how can you make content that people will watch before or during installation rather than something they resort to after failed attempts If it s to build a community of like minded users then how do you attract them initially and encourage them to share in your community rather than in another one E Next you need to think about how users
44. Facebook were a country it would be the world s third largest It took radio 38 years to reach 50 million listeners Facebook added 200 million users in less than a year 50 of internet traffic in the UK is for Facebook 80 of companies use social media for recruitment The percentage of these using LinkedIn is 95 34 of bloggers post opinions about products and brands Source www socialnomics net 2011 Source Wikipedia com September 2011 By Google Communicator Spring 2012 mix The Internet provides a key channel for global communications and social media is playing a crucial role in Internet marketing and establishing networks and communities Social media enables organisations to raise awareness by creating online discussions with targeted communities and also enables them to promote products and services at a relatively low cost As Oscar Wilde once said The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about Use of social media According to research conducted by Burson Marsteller www burson marsteller com for its Global Social Media Check up February 2011 more than one half 84 of the top 100 companies in the Fortune Global 500 index are using at least one of the main social media platforms Twitter Facebook YouTube or corporate blogs Twitter is the most popular social media tool among Fortune Global 100 companies with two thirds having a Twitter presence and at least one h
45. Focus on social media Exploring the subject from different angles Communicator The Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators Spring 2012 bad of Bredking into each ne 4 Te A METE YL An analogy from the motor industry WM E RN a AANT J release of MadCap ras ay Explaining how a local MONEY uses scrum N y NY NJ X WY Al NY N O NA Ni Do you need to localise your eLearning projects on time within budget and with total confidence ensure your eLearning modules maximise the learning outcomes in each target language find out how to author your eLearning modules with translation in mind achieve a solution tailored to your specific requirements If so then contact ITR today to discuss your projects ITR specialises in translating and localising technical content This includes eLearning content software applications user assistance documentation and websites Whatever your development environment technical domain or languages required ITR has the linguistic resources and technical expertise to meet your needs Expert use of industry standard eLearning tools for compatibility with your authoring environment Experienced in house localisation engineering team to streamline workflows and minimise production time Protection of your code and source structure throughout the translation cycle for accuracy and p
46. I transpose my mark up to the PDF file using Adobe Acrobat Professional s Sticky Note facility Typically it can include the following Obvious mistake I specify the correction required Looks wrong and I think I know what is right I suggest the correction Looks wrong odd but I don t know what it should be I mark it up and request resolution It is important to be consistent in mark up of comments so that the Editor can readily find the relevant Communicator professional journal Communicator our quarterly professional journall offers in depth articles case studies book and product reviews covering the breadth of technical communications Figure 1 Proofreading markup example places in the article If there is a recurring theme or there are related items within an article I make sure these are marked clearly as a group The proofreader must be mindful that the Editor will need to work swiftly to assess the comments and then implement changes as needed Final step In the proofreader s ideal world the copy will be put aside for re reading later As the textbooks say in this way proofs may be viewed as both familiar and new This is an important part of my proofreading task for Communicator it is a step I always include After the re read I save the annotated PDF file with a suitable filename and email it to Katherine Usually there is no need for further
47. Manual of Style for Technical Publications 3rd Edition Washington Microsoft Press Mitamura T 1999 Controlled language for multilingual machine translation Proceedings of Machine Translation Summit VII Singapore September 13 17 1999 Muegge U 2009 Controlled language does my company need it Retrieved 12 December 2012 from www tcworld info index php id 48 Murphy D Mason J and Sklair S 1998 Improving translation at the source Translating and the Computer 20 Proceedings from AsLib conference 12 13 November 1998 N bel R 2004 Evaluation and adaptation of a specialised language checking tool for non specialised machine translation and non expert MT users for multi lingual telecooperation Retrieved 06 July 2011 from www mt archive info LREC 2004 Nuebel pdf O Broin U 2005 Taking care of global business Translatability and localization of e business applications MultiLingual Computing amp Technology 73 July August 2005 Sandpoint MultiLingual Inc O Broin U 2009 Controlled authoring to improve localization MultiLingual Writing for Translation Getting Started Guide October November 2009 Sandpoint MultiLingual Inc O Brien S 2003 Controlling Controlled English An analysis of several controlled language rule sets Proceedings of the EAMT CLAW 2003 Dublin Ireland O Brien S 2006 Machine translatability and post editing effort An empirical study usin
48. The ability to write custom code to do page animation and adjust the video presentation was one of the upsides of not using a default help authoring tool video embed feature What about our users who didn t have access to the Internet Rather than disappoint them with broken links or a blank box we decided that we would use JavaScript to check for a connection to our video hosting solution Screencast com If the page could load the logo from Screencast com then it could also load a video from the service If it couldn t then the page did not make the show video link visible This way users with no Internet connection wouldn t have their user experience changed by features they were unable to use Further considerations When considering videos in a help file think beyond implementation to how it might impact your process or organisation Do you have enough time to create fully realised videos between the time application development is finished and your help content is due What impact does video have on localising your help The costs of localising video are very different from localising text How much additional quality assurance time is needed for your help file In our case we added code to check for access to a remote server embed video hosted remotely and then animate the appearance of that video The addition of that much complexity to a product means that getting additional testing done is essential In
49. Thesauruses are available in print for example the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary as electronic documentation a PDF electronic document file for example online or as thesaurus software They are often free to use and openly available in the public domain although some are organisation specific World Bank terminology database for example Thesauruses may be monolingual Thesaurus com for example or multilingual such as the Eurovoc thesaurus Publications Office of the European Union 2010 Dictionaries too are available in print the Oxford English Dictionary for example as electronic documentation online or as dictionary software Generic dictionaries may be monolingual for example Dictionary com or multilingual Bernth and Gdaniec 2001 believe that organisation specific dictionaries are useful in improving the lexical quality of corporate documents and enabling them for translation Organisation specific dictionaries may be monolingual Adobe ActionScript dictionary or multilingual SAP English German dictionary Hutchins 1998 Dictionaries are typically used as problem solving resources by showing how to use words in context Agirre et al 2000 Encyclopaedias are also available in print Encyclopaedia Britannica as electronic documentation or online Wikipedia Generic encyclopaedias such as Wikipedia offer information related to general branches of knowledge rather than a specific domain
50. You can have any colour How is motor vehicle manufacturing related to technical communication Tony Self describes an allegory A Figure 1 The Model T Ford An allegory is a means of representing an idea using symbolic representation Itis a kind of extended metaphor It occurs to me that motor vehicle manufacturing can be used as an allegory for the business of technical communication Let me explain from the beginning The motor car was invented in Europe Germany to be specific and at the start of the 20th century most motor vehicles were made in Europe We may think of the United States as the home of the motor car but in 1902 a total of 314 cars was produced in America By contrast the most prolific motor manufacturing country France produced 23 000 cars in that same year Belgium was producing far more cars than the US But just four years later in 1906 the USA overtook all other car manufacturing nations when it produced 58 000 cars So how did the US transform from a car manufacturing backwater to a powerhouse One reason was that America was a wealthy country and at the start of the 20th century only rich people could afford cars Although America had lots of rich people for motor vehicle manufacturing to be a big industry it needed to develop a mass market The man credited with working out how to create a mass market for cars was Henry Ford He started with the premise that for more people to be ab
51. a textbook Technical Editing is great for undergraduates new to the world of editing Technical Editing walks its readers through the experience of being an editor outlining what it might be like at every stage of the text production process and pointing out best practices along the way The text points out similarities among even the most diverse situations reminding the reader that the principles of good editing should remain constant no matter how much contexts may vary At the same time the importance of adaptation and flexibility are also emphasised Several easy to grasp case studies provide examples of the people scenarios and processes often involved in editing projects at all levels from beginning to end The text makes an excellent textbook for students it provides a good review for practitioners and is an adaptable teaching tool for instructors Five main sections Five main sections comprise 24 well organised chapters covering the ins and outs of technical editing Part 1 explains the whys of editing the contexts and situations an editor may encounter whether working as a contractor or as part of a larger communications department or other organisation In Part 2 the hows of editing are broken down This section gives the reader an overview of the tools and methods an Communicator Spring 2012 editor ought to understand such as marking copy and querying authors Building on these basic met
52. achbuilding tradition Before the assembly line motor vehicles were made by artisans Purchasing a motor vehicle was a two step process first you would buy a chassis from a chassis maker and then you would take it to a coachbuilder The chassis maker would supply the chassis the drive train engine gears axles and wheels the suspension the radiator and the steering system The coachbuilder would build a body for the chassis to suit the customer s needs If the customer needed four seats the coachbuilder would build a four seat cabin If the customer needed a small truck the coachbuilder would build a two seat cabin with a tray on the same chassis The chassis maker worked in metal and the coachbuilder worked in wood and leather Sometimes chassis makers and coachbuilders would team up to offer a packaged product For example Fisher Body teamed up with Cadillac to build all the closed body Cadillacs of the 1910s Even after Henry Ford s assembly line had transformed manufacturing and half of all cars in America were Model Ts coachbuilding persisted In sharp contrast to Ford Rolls Royce was very slow to embrace the assembly line Up until World War II every Rolls Royce was produced by artisans in the coachbuilding tradition E as a rolling chassis to be later sent to an independent coachbuilder In the 1960s it became popular for the wealthy to use coachbuilders as a way of creating exclusive and expensive versions
53. agers and professional authors examine all these resources to determine the optimum mix of resources to suit their requirements C E References Agirre E Arregi X Artola X De Ilarraza A Sarasola K and Soroa A 2000 A methodology for building translator oriented dictionary systems Machine Translation 15 295 310 2000 Allen J 1999 Adapting the concept of translation memory to authoring memory for a controlled language writing environment Proceedings of the 21st Conference of Translating and the Computer ASLIB 10 11 November 1999 London Bankole A 2006 Dealing with abbreviations in translation Translation Journal Volume 10 No 4 Beaupre J 2010 Industry trend Quality at the source understanding how an information quality strategy is essential in today s business world Retrieved 18 November 2011 from www acrolinx com uploads documents media media_CIDM_NL_Source_Quality_Oct_2010 pdf Bergeron B and Bailin M 1997 The contribution of hypermedia link authoring Technical Communication Second Quarter 1997 Bernth A 2002 EasyEnglish A tool for improving document quality IBM Research Bernth A 2006 EasyEnglishAnalyzer Taking Controlled Language from sentence to discourse level Retrieved 15 February 2011 from www mt archive info CLAW 2006 Bernth pdf Bernth A and Gdaniec C 2001 MTranslatability Machine Translation 16 175 218 2001 Be
54. alf are reaching audiences through Facebook 54 and YouTube 50 One third of organisations maintain corporate blogs Many organisations are realising the benefits of blogging it s a quick relatively inexpensive tool that enables you to share your expertise and build web traffic and more importantly connect with existing and potential clients There has been a significant rise in social media activity in the Asia Pacific region The Burson Marsteller Asia Pacific Corporate Social Media Study released in October 2011 showed how more than 80 percent of organisations listed on The Wall Street Journal s Asia 200 Index have a corporate social media presence up from 40 last year 2010 Eighty one percent of top Asian organisations now have a branded corporate social media presence over double the figure for 2010 and in line with 84 of Fortune Global 100 firms As well as the leading social media sites mentioned previously there are also many many more English speaking and other sites available see Table 1 Many organisations have multiple accounts for social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook and these different accounts can be managed by different corporate divisions that may be located all over the world Both HP and IBM have over 80 blogs apiece The Daily Telegraph website has 41 blogs blogs telegraph co uk The New York Times website www nytimes com has 59 blogs All by different writers and journalists all on
55. an agile environment Under the PSDO Partner Standards Development Organization Cooperation Agreement between ISO and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers IEEE these will also be published as IEEE standards This agreement is intended to reduce duplication of effort by encouraging joint development and maintenance the adoption of IEEE standards Communicator Spring 2012 by ISO fast track FDIS Final Draft International Standard process and the incorporation of content from IEEE standards into ISO standards For example content from IEEE 1063 2001 IEEE Standard for Software User Documentation was used in the development of this new series Initial phase completed The publication of ISO IEC IEEE 26511 completes the initial phase Of a series of new standards by ISO IEC JTC 1 SC 7 WG 2 Systems and software documentation that began in 2006 following the report of the SC 7 Documentation Study Group the key recommendations of which were to revise and rationalise existing SC 7 documentation standards to better address the needs of the different audiences involved in the development and implementation of software documentation Content from earlier WG 2 standards included ISOAEC 15910 1999 Information technology Software user documentation process ISOAEC 6592 2000 Information technology Guidelines for the documentation of computer based application systems ISO 9127 1988
56. and environmentally friendly you should be talking to us As an award winning leader in the field of eco friendly printing we cut out the waste and the costs to give you a great looking product within your budget with a sustainable approach tel 01256 880770 web www greenhousegraphics co uk dE E ttt greenhouse Srapiaics Communicator Spring 2012 58 Madcap tips tips The MadCap column In this first column Matthew Ellison describes the challenges of publishing to print from Flare Part 1 Although MadCap Flare is perhaps known primarily as a Help Authoring Tool it is also capable of publishing content to a range of print based formats including PDF XPS Word and FrameMaker As user assistance developers we are often called upon to generate both on screen Help perhaps in the form of WebHelp and print based documentation usually as PDF files from the same content source And this is a challenge because the expectations of our end users for on screen Help and for print based documentation are often completely different For example users may expect to be able to start reading a PDF manual from the beginning and for it to provide a seamless flow of information that builds up their knowledge sequentially whereas in the Help file they expect to be able to randomly access any topic and for it to provide a complete and self contained answer to their question or problem There are several ways i
57. and how long it takes for the link to spread Pm adamant that there s no such thing as a social media expert and any company offering their services as such should be queried There are hundreds of bloggers Twitter accounts and brands that can provide you with the advice and information you need for free on how to set up accounts use the features gain metrics and improve how you use the networks Because of the frequent changes to all the networks and their interfaces any advice you get today may be redundant tomorrow It isn t rocket science it just takes time Getting permission to invest time in social media can be difficult as the return on investment isn t always as easy to identify as a magazine advert or a new authoring tool Producing high quality and engaging content will help your users using social media effectively can help spread it beyond traditional channels There are obvious benefits and dangers of falling behind if your competitors beat you to it Lee Mullin is a Product Support Specialist for Autodesk running the social media channels for Autodesk Navisworks products E lee mullineautodesk com W www autodesk co uk http uk linkedin com in Irmullin Tw leeroyb Communicator Spring 2012 20 Social media media The meteoric rise of social media Louise Law from Welocalize discusses how social media is affecting localisation and translation Online content has exploded globally Fact W
58. associated with text reuse including productivity gains reduced development time brand enhancement and increased customer satisfaction Brockmann 1997 advocates that AM also has the potential to reduce translation costs and improve translatability by ensuring improving consistency in source language text with Allen 1999 stating that AM systems can have the Same impact on the quality of technical writing as translation memory tools have had on the quality of translated material Hurst 2008 concurs suggesting that translation savings of 10 30 percent are possible by utilising new AM technologies Campo 2009 conducted an experiment with AM in 2009 that involved rewriting a help system to improve its potential for source language text reuse Although the cost of outsourcing translation of the help system was reduced by 625 as a result of the text reuse and word reduction this only partially offset the estimated 1 850 worth of time 37 hours spent on editing the content However the researcher s organisation translated into 12 languages which changed the total cost A savings figure for translation outsourcing to Researchers 7 500 Given that that the time spent rewriting advocate broad the source language content remained the high level authoring same regardless of how many languages it was principles as well as translated into the final savings experienced specific low level by the company for all 12 langua
59. ated periodically In the case of SmartMusic the Web component is dynamically updated all the time For Finale on the other hand a downloadable maintenance release is provided periodically Figure 4 The Finale visual index enables users to click on a musical figure to PEDO Ate ne dorar eben ado mae beauty ot identify its description then link directly to the article that explains how to Flare s topic based approach is that it allows create it us to easily update our online Help whenever we change the Web content or update the ere ee rn x application In the past printed documentation would be updated once or twice a year at most By contrast our Web based Help is typically updated every other week 5 heiwoi omnercion ni S en Sa crams arb ted Te oe o aa apta Y Some of these updates are driven by minor Din a Cuan troubleshooting assistance Gal software enhancements Others result from panam r s compute synchronising our online Help system with the interactive knowledge base and forums managed by our technical support and customer service teams Synchronising with major releases The topic based authoring in Flare also has played a large role in our ability to synchronise our documentation and online Help development with major new product releases One deliverable is a brief offline Help document that ships with the software and installers It simply shows customers how to Figure 5 Simple gra
60. ator_archive html ISTC members only AAA The Editor welcomes articles and letters for publication Opinions expressed by contributors are not necessarily those of the ISTC All articles are copyright and are the property of the authors who have asserted their moral rights For permission to reproduce an article contact the author directly or through the Editor All trademarks are the property of their registered owners Advertisements are accepted on the understanding that they conform to the British Code of Advertising Practice Acceptance of an advertisement for publication does not imply that a product or service has the ISTC s endorsement The Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators ISTC Airport House Purley Way Croydon CRO OXZ T 44 0 20 8253 4506 F 44 0 20 8253 4510 W www istc org uk NA a E istc istc org uk Printed on recycled paper using vegetable inks and low volatile organic compound VOC chemistry ISTC news 4 From the editor 5 Getting Communicator online 6 President s view 8 Online groups 10 From the treasurer Articles 11 Tomorrow s help Noz Urbina Delivering context sensitive assistance and user generated content inside the product interface 16 Howto get to grips with social media Lee Mullin Taking advantage of social networking 20 The meteoric rise of social media Louise Law Discussing how social media is affecting localisation and translation 23 Including video in a help fil
61. ave to keep motivating and engaging with your crowd to keep them on board For more significant corporate and product communications put out via social media more predictable and sustainable localisation solutions will be needed On demand multilingual solutions Content as we have known it has changed form Through social media content has become more uncontrolled but more widely read by users across the globe For any organisation to stay competitive its content must be available on any device mobile or otherwise at any time and in any language The reality of this is an economical challenge Social media moves fast never staying still New hot topics occur all the time There s currently interest in the relatively new social media site Pinterest www pinterest com This is a pinboard styled social photo sharing website currently growing in popularity among women And where will Facebook take us next One thing you can guarantee is that social media will continue to be developed and simply become part of everyday life Whether we like it want it or need it it s here to stay For localisation and translation it s a challenge to keep up and make social media truly multilingual 8 Louise Law is a writer and marketing professional at Welocalize E louise law welocalize com W www welocalize com www facebook com welocalize Video 23 Including video in a help file Integrating video into a help file can be a reward
62. base held EE ERRADA T where Eyr Resen All Commande For Al Everts to datada field El serra te database held webptr E to database heid E zy E be dente held T condemenen g fu oti Figure 11 Data Management screen that passes data from a user entry in the BBQ app to a Google docs spreadsheet regarding online help user assistance when RTF and HTML were considered to be at the cutting edge of technical complexity Things change Summary As outsourcing social media and other factors change the once calm field of technical communication technical communicators are starting to look at moving into other semi related fields User experience is currently a widely discussed alternative but I ve seen little discussion about mobile perhaps because it seems too programmatic But so did online help and the web at one time If you re a technical communicator watching Changes in the field and wondering where to turn look at mobile You may be able to get started by using familiar tools like RoboHelp and Flare and move into new areas like native apps by taking a surprisingly small conceptual step into new tools What Doc To Help and RoboHelp were to online help in 1991 tools like Viziapps and iBuildApp are to mobile apps today This is a good time to start looking into what might be your next career shift Neil Perlin is president of Hyper Word Services of Tewksbury MA H
63. bfolders in the Project Explorer HTML5 EPUB Allow landscape pages in portrait based documents Collapse top margins Ability to set default viewer settings Repeat table captions Page break improvements Adjustable margins New styles for very long entries Capability to hide page numbers for specific TOC levels Sort as capability New single line format New styles for very long entries Capability to put separators Capability to add meta tags and Output sitemaps You can select topics from the Table of Contents to be sent out for review Reviewers can now add images to a topic Free review using Annotations Review package TOC View Empty Content Folders Named Destinations Files with Named Destinations Cross Reference Suggestions Communicator Spring 2012 The browser based help output from Flare meets the new HTMLS standard and has a new look and feel consistent with current browser UIs such as Google Chrome A new Electronic Publishing EPUB output format is available to produce help in an eBook format that can be read on many mobile devices The print output PDF has been improved and includes more custom settings for Tables of Contents and Indexes User interface improvements The most obvious change to the UI is that the toolbar now appears in the Microsoft ribbon format This is the new default You can easily change back to the traditional Flare toolbars F
64. bout 1995 when I read in Communicator that a North West Area group see page 8 for the current list of Area Groups was being formed I went to the inaugural meeting in Manchester and found myself on the committee of four Over the next few years we held numerous events of a wide variety for members and their guests and I joined the Council but only carrying out the role of Area activities we were the only Area Group for many years We also ran the first ISTC Conference outside London in the autumn of 2000 and I hosted an ISTC stand at the Furness College Technology Fair the same year Communicator Spring 2012 The reasoning Around this time I was running my own small business and without the support of someone else s business I wondered if I should carry on with the North West Area Group organising and running events Taking some time to reflect I discovered that I wanted to get more out of my ISTC membership than was on offer Like most people I established that there were some things that I would have done differently if I were in charge and that perhaps it was time to resign After further consideration however I came to the conclusion that I wanted to belong to the community of technical communicators and that to do this meant remaining a member The next step seemed to me to be the only option I had if I wanted change I had to be a full part of the decision making process on Council Doing more Time to step
65. ccomplish a task The documentation may be the first tangible item that the user sees and therefore it often influences the user s first impressions of the software product If the information is supplied in a convenient form and is easy to find and understand the user can quickly become proficient at using the product Hence well designed documentation not only assists the user and helps to reduce the cost of training and support but it also enhances the reputation of the product its producer and its suppliers Although software developers aim to design user interfaces that behave so intuitively that very little separate documentation is needed this is rarely possible in practice User documentation is an essential component of usable software products Documentation is often regarded as something that is produced after the software has been written However for high quality effective software documentation its development should be regarded as an integral part of the software lifecycle process If done properly documentation or information management is a large enough task to require process planning in its own right Standards recently published In December 2011 ISO published two new software documentation standards ISO IEC IEEE 26511 Systems and software engineering Requirements for managers of user documentation and ISO IEC IEEE 26515 Systems and software engineering Developing user documentation in
66. ce Be interested in the role you have applied for An employer is looking for the exceptional not the norm You have to stand out from the crowd I went into my interview thinking I already had the job and that subsequent applicants would have to fight me to take it away from me Keep up to date with the latest trends by following blogs and joining the ISTC Organisations are not just thinking about the next 12 months they are thinking about what you can give them over the long term Be adaptable More than ever before organisations are restructuring or growing Grow with them and be positive Look for examples both at interview and when you start where you can get further involved and help them You have to be in it to win it You have to love what you do Don t go into technical communication if you don t like the mundane as well as the interesting It is important that you project to an employer that you have fun in your role and want to be there No one wants to employ someone who will be unhappy or lose interest A bit about the job do now So I ve told you how I did it Now for a little bit about what I have done in my first year at GE Oil amp Gas Downhole Technology First what is downhole technology Downhole technology focuses upon test and measurement tools used by oil companies when a well bore is measured for its potential for generating oil and gas The first priority in my job is to be safe GE has an e
67. content is completely disconnected from all the social and online content Metadata is the key There is no reason to not internet enable the Info View and Help Views so that for every area covered in official embedded documentation there would be links out to the ever growing User generated and online content The secret is metadata and automatic relationships Today more advanced projects although still the minority are using structured source content and a dynamic delivery server to serve up small content modules to wherever they need to go This allows content to appear in a variety of contexts and formats print manuals PDF embedded help websites often various sites mobile devices and eBooks of all kinds Because structured content and modularity means that metadata becomes very reliable and portable different content sets relate to each other more easily Content from the usual sources knowledge base articles technical communications tutorial and how tos is no longer siloed It can not only be automatically interlinked but can now link to user generated content as well But why not from inside the application too In all documentation websites and products there is metadata everywhere Product names models feature names plugin names the currently installed OS or platform the current task being carried out in the UI all can be used to drive an automated filtering operation to pull down cont
68. customise the settings at all EPUB output You can now generate EPUB output which is a format for creating reflowable digital books eBooks Digital books are rapidly growing in popularity and use in the world of technical communication EPUB is a downloadable format that users can load on a device most likely a mobile device This format is best for content witha long shelf life EPUB docs will run on most portable consumer devices including the Amazon Kindle Barnes amp Noble Nook Apple devices iPad iPhone and iPod Touch If you don t have any mobile devices you can still read eBooks using either the free Adobe Digital Editions reader or the EPUBReader a free Firefox add in EPUB is good for linear documents such as policy manuals getting started guides etc EPUB is also suited for selling published documents via app stores EPUB is easy to deploy as it is a single file output format Figure 6 shows sample EPUB output generated from Flare 8 Generating EPUB output was even easier than generating the HTML5 output All I had to do was select EPUB as the target and build the output no additional scripts or tweaking required I found that the default options for the EPUB output worked fine out of the box Again I didn t have to customise the settings Although eBooks are new to me I viewed several using the desktop tools mentioned above to get a feel for the format Flare s output was very Similar
69. d 7 F id Akins Fras HOT COMMANIHDOWN ARFON da mows ll Daph Now kaTa change some piches AS Hirea 2013 etaa Charges 4 iR ihe D eign rola selectas ippa C B Senpby type then batiar name lo changa oe Pa pii of a eeeched rota Hybi the carol appears Typeng Pa note leer car lr msc be used for eriy Noa lets change then beca Kg Peart gt Eneng rolas 4 Pan Sms Er 5 Press LEFT ARRO mice amd pe D A Paragon ae UO OFT Pcia POLA Laya f soni 3 Autor your E Watch video Using Simple Entry loeyboard shortouts Polonia 4 Betting pour rra Tonara aan inerrant H The dl Falorial 5 Lies chore ha Po 4 Adding chord mpra j Tip Using you MIDI Keyboard bo specifiy ihe pich ir rT pra vetit Simole Entrar With the care active simoly olav the desired Wott Fo learn af of depen Entry powan ating funcions Figure 2 Videos embedded in the Tutorial portion of the Finale user manual demonstrate each step of the score creation process incorporating time saving keyboard shortcuts AD nrto worm gmartmusic com onlimehelp smertmusic2OL2 smertmusic htm 5 Smertiluex het You are here Troubleshooting gt Mecrophone gt Signal too quiet WB common neip topes Y Troubieshooting Y erognone No mecrophone No signal equal teo eun SmartMusic has detected that your microphone signal is too quiet Sound and sudin ene E possible move the micraphone level slider to the right to increase your signal Rr trener a You may
70. d adapt to meet the demands that will continue to emerge Paul Ballard FISTC E president istc org uk Member news New Members Member Richard Bowen Jenny Burton Andrew Bush Alastair Chamberlain Stephen Handley Georgina Harris Alan Hewitt Herman Jordaan Lauren Olson Stephen Pantony Susan Smith Claire Wright Associate Seun Okewole Junior Members Shaun Allen Michael Parkes Helen Shaw Ryan ST John Student Katarina Bovin Transfers Fellow Stephen Helms Katherine Judge Stuart Miller Richard Pineger Tim Sadler David Woodward Retired Fellow William Beale Member Marjorie Jones Deirdre Laffan Roger Morton Michael Valentine Junior Liam Cragg Diego Schiavon Joseph Sellman Rejoiners Fellow Alexander Diack Robin Smith Business Affiliates Gold Morson Projects Bronze ITS South Glamorgan Liverpool Bristol Sussex Gloucestershire Bristol Bristol London Nottingham UAE Somerset Derbyshire London Germany Staffordshire Cambridge Hampshire Sweden London Surrey Devon Manchester London Derbyshire Australia Southampton Ireland Birmingham Bedford Suffolk The Netherlands Canada Qatar Fife Cumbria Yorkshire The Institute The Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators is the largest UK body for people engaged in technical communication The ISTC encourages professional development and standards provides research resources and n
71. d especially these days their peers Manuals single sourcing and even content are all a means to an end that end being accomplishing tasks I was discussing task orientation with Peter Jones Information Architect at ARM Ltd in NN January Peter works for a semi conductor I ve got an idea industry microchips company Their users Help me make it primary employment is designing the digital work Figure 2 This software application contains two embedded windows showing two types of help material 1 The Info View shows useful explanatory information about whatever the mouse is hovering over even when dialog boxes have been launched or inside third party plug in applications Currently it is showing help on the Hot Swap Browser 2 The Help View which hosts various tutorials and lesson content Some tutorials have sample files that the user interacts with while walking through the various steps Communicator Spring 2012 14 Pembedded social content social content technologies in everything from satellites to toasters The way he summarised their user needs was almost identical to what a musician might think about software help or anyone using any creative tool Tve got an idea Help me make it work When users say they want more tutorials or more multimedia and video they are actually asking for more knowledge so that they can do the things the content is discussing This is the fun
72. damental point of task oriented content versus the reference oriented content that we so often give to users Help files manuals tutorial videos etc are simply vehicles for knowledge transfer from person to person Hence we now call it technical communication not documentation Help me Now Embedding helpful content prevents users breaking flow from tasks to seek information about those tasks This is true even when the task is actually learning Let us look at the learning flow versus the using or doing flow vis a vis product content When learning about products users Choose their desired subject area Find an appropriate resource Consume it and commit it to memory At some point hopefully soon return to the using doing flow with the product to hand Apply the learned knowledge to turn it into reusable skills In the learning flow embedding help integrates the learning more closely with the doing This shortens the delay between learning of facts or concepts and using them in the context of real tasks User Task Channel and Deliverables Context Figure 3 This software application contains two embedded windows showing two types of help material 1 The Info View shows useful explanatory information about whatever the mouse is hovering over even when dialog boxes have been launched and inside Ableton s plugin applications Currently it is showing help on the Hot Swap Brows
73. dard English has approximately a dozen rules and Caterpillar Technical English CTE consists of more than 100 Muegge 2009 Broin 2009 confirms that controlled languages typically use between ten and one hundred rules The main benefits associated with CLs are improved consistency Torrejon and Rico 2003 Kohl 2008 clarity and readabilty Murphy et al 1998 Reuther 1998 Torrejon and Rico 2003 Rico and Torrejon 2005 O Brien 2006 Kohl 2008 Muegge 2009 translatability Murphy et al 1998 Reuther 1998 Torrejon and Rico 2003 O Brien 2006 Kohl 2008 customer satisfaction and corporate image Murphy et al 1998 Muegge 2009 and potential content reuse Allen 1999 CL results in cost savings throughout both the authoring and translation processes Reuther 1998 Torrejon and Rico 2003 Authoring costs are reduced by increased reuse of previously created content which improves the productivity of technical writers Allen 1999 Kohl 2008 and helps reduce the overall volume of text by use of short clear and direct sentences Murphy et al 1998 Torrejon and Rico 2003 Human translation savings are achieved by making source content easier to comprehend and translate Murphy et al 1998 Kohl 2008 and by reducing the number of unique words requiring translation Hurst 2008 Indeed Braster 2009 believes that the reuse of words and sentences can reduce content by up to 30 and save translation costs by u
74. e Matthew Dyer Integrating video into a help file 26 A scrum without the opposition Rachel Houghton and John Burns Explaining how a local authority uses Scrum 3Q Howto be a Technical Communicator Claire Wood Breaking into or returning to work read these hints and tips 32 MadCap Flare 8 A tool for the 21st century Ed Marshall Looking at MadCap s latest release 36 Youcan have any colour Tony Self Describing how the motor industry is related to technical communication 40 Creating mobile apps without coding Neil Perlin Explaining why you should be considering mobile applications 44 Global authoring resources Lorcan Ryan Discovering an overview of global authoring resources 48 Singing a new tune with help Mark Johnson Describing how print documents were replaced by interactive online help Regular columns 51 52 54 35 56 58 60 62 cover WINNER Producing Communicator Linda Robins Book review Amelia Chesley Adobe tips Colum McAndrew APEX AWARDS FOR PUBLICATION EXCELLENCE Editing Jean Rollinson Ethical dilemmas Warren Singer MadCap tips Matthew Ellison WINNER International standards Richard Hodgkinson A day in the life Theresa Cameron APEX A black Model T Aros FORT a 2012 Tony Self PUBLICATION EXCELLENCE Communicator Spring 2012 From the editor I was asking speakers at the Technical Communication UK event in September if they d like to contribute articles for
75. e generic web app Some pros and cons of native apps include May be what your audience expects Can use platform or device specific features like the camera or GPS in ways that web apps cannot However this may change as HTML5 comes into use for app development But versioning an app to support it across different devices and platforms can be expensive How to create eBooks and web apps You can create eBooks and web apps manually or using GUI tools the latter being faster and less error prone If you re in technical communication there are two GUI tools that you may already have Adobe RoboHelp and MadCap Flare I m certified in RoboHelp Flare and Viziapps but this is not a sales pitch justa list of common and easy to use tools To create eBooks Use RoboHelp 8 or 9 The output is in EPUB format It runs on the Nook or any device with an EPUB reader You can convert EPUB format to Kindle format using 3rd party tools like Calibre at http calibre ebook com Web apps Use Flare 6 or 7 to create web apps optimised for mobile or any HAT to create web apps not optimised for mobile in a browser based output like Flare s and RoboHelp s WebHelp How to create native apps GUI native app development tools are fairly new first appearing in 2010 with Google App Inventor see http appinventor googlelabs com about for an introduction Viziapps www viziapps com iBuildApp http ibuildapp com or appmakr www
76. e has 33 years of experience in technical writing with 27 in training consulting and developing for online formats and tools including WinHelp HTML Help JavaHelp CE Help RoboHelp Flare and some now exhibited in museums Neil is Adobe certified in RoboHelp and Captivate MadCap certified in Flare and Mimic and a Viziapps certified consultant He is an STC Fellow and the founder and manager of the Beyond the Bleeding Edge stem at the STC summit E nperlin nperlin cnc net W www hyperword com Further reading appmakr www appmakr com Calibre http calibre ebook com Google App Inventor http appinventor googlelabs com about iBuildApp http ibuildapp com Perlin N 2010 MadCap Flare goes mobile Communicator Summer 2010 29 31 Viziapps www viziapps com Communicator Spring 2012 44 Resources rces Global authoring resources This overview of global authoring resources is part of the PhD research conducted by Lorcan Ryan at the University of Limerick Glossaries are useful for both authors and translators Communicator Spring 2012 Professional authors use a myriad of terminological and stylistic resources in the modern workplace including thesauruses dictionaries encyclopaedias lexical databases glossaries terminology databases author memories controlled languages style guides controlled languages and authoring standards Thesauruses dictionaries and encyclopaedias
77. e we first made this decision Adobe has introduced support for their Flash plugin on 64 bit operating systems In addition to the file format of the video we needed to make some decisions about the videos themselves What dimensions should the videos be How long should they be To decide that we needed to think about the goals of our videos We decided that our videos would be an alternative to tutorial help topics They would accompany help topics that covered all the Same information If users preferred to learn from written text or were without Internet access all the same information would be available As one of the original goals of our project was to re purpose material that would be used on our website we decided that our videos would use our standard dimensions of 800 x 450 pixels The video in our help file would be self contained but we still wanted to keep them short and concise Our objective was to keep them to two to four minutes in length Video presentation In the actual help topic where should the videos go Keeping them at the forefront was important but we didn t want all the help content to be below the page fold Using a JavaScript library called jQuery we created a hyperlink just below the topic title that opened the video on the page When clicked the link animated into a video display area This kept the video at the forefront of the topic without pushing all the written content below the fold
78. echnical communication tools Effects on technical communication Based on my experience with clients and from speaking at conferences I don t expect mobile in general and native app authoring in particular to have a major impact on technical communication for another year or so The reason is that we re in the middle of some shifts in viewpoints There s no defined mobile aspect yet for many companies products For example if a company makes accounting software is there a mobile market for it Every time I speak to STC or similar groups I ask how many people work for companies that are investigating in mobile The response is usually less than 5 percent Mobile is so different from what we re accustomed to that it takes time to fit it into existing operations and viewpoints The Same was true of online help and the web in their early days If there isa mobile aspect to a company s product there s a view that apps are so simple as to not need help So there s no role for technical communicators in the mobile world But there are always exceptions There may be mobile apps that are complex enough to need help for the mechanics of the app or the background knowledge needed to use it Or people may just misinterpret the interface For a silly but telling example involving the iPhone version of a game called Fruit Ninja see the post entitled A Mobile App Usability Tale dated January 22 in my blog at ww
79. ed eee ee oe eS eee A o ad j T PDM gm lse E Guts de nien ESP a Oegend derma d Output Tyee conteens Tee t gr gt ybs Mester TOC A Mare Page eot 5 So f Mear proesas Recap Tipe IIA a ust cry Figure 1 Print specific stylesheet and TOC selected in Target Settings A ee r amh p r Figure 2 Selecting the print medium in the Stylesheet Editor stylesheet highlighted in red in the General tab of your Target settings By defining print specific styles within the same stylesheet that you are using for your Help output The advantages of this method are that it minimises the CSS code you only need to specify the differences between on screen and print based formatting and the fact that these print specific styles will also be used automatically if the end user prints a Help topic to their printer To define print specific styles you simply select the print medium within the Stylesheet Editor see Figure 2 If you are using relative font sizes for your Help styles you can choose simply to allow Flare to map these to fixed sizes based on the following default mappings Table 1 Font sizes Default font size for print medium Relative font size Alternatively you can specify your own custom font sizes for the print medium for each of your styles Madcap tips 1 59 Table of contents As I mentioned in the opening paragraph of this article on screen Help and p
80. ed for mobile Some pros and cons of web apps include Run on anything with a browser without having to be redesigned for mobile but often more usable if they are redesigned for mobile Only have to follow a few browser standards rather than many platform device standards But don t take full advantage of platform device features like cameras and accelerometers but HTML5 may change this E Native apps App is short for application The term predates mobile but in recent years it s been increasingly used in the context of mobile for example mobile app or native app or iPhone app Apps are usually very task focused unlike big do everything PC applications like Word You ll find apps for scanning and storing information from business cards tracking your observation of Messier objects a type of astronomical object or reserving an airport shuttle bus Figures 4 and 5 are two examples of apps Apps can be web apps as described above but the term is usually taken to mean native apps what we think of as mobile apps These apps follow the standards for are native to particular mobile platforms devices That means that an iPhone app won t run on an Android device and vice versa This complicates your app planning if your users have a variety of mobile devices like iPhones Androids BlackBerry Windows phones and others and may drive you towards creating a mor
81. edings of the twelfth Machine Translation Summit August 26 30 Ottawa Ontario Canada Savourel Y 2003 An introduction to using XLIFF MultiLingual Computing amp Technology 54 March 2003 Sandpoint MultiLingual Inc Symantec 2010 Glossary Retrieved 28 January 2010 from www symantec com business security_response glossary jsp Torrejon E and Rico C 2004 Controlled languages in the localization industry Localisation Focus 2 4 Limerick LRC Zerfals A 2004 Testing TMX import export in several translation tools A comparison of match rates shows the effect of differing segmentation rules Multilingual Computing amp Technology 68 December 2004Author A and Researcher B F 1986 Paper title Journal of Experimental Results 54 4 181 188 Communicator Spring 2012 Singing a new tune with help Mark Johnson describes Finale s evolution from printed documentation to interactive online help using MadCap Flare As the world standard for music notation software Finale has always offered users new and exciting ways to make music each feature promising to unleash some aspect of the musician s creative energy As its documentation editor my job is to help explain how it s done and to do so with minimal interruption to that creative flow In other words to get them back to creating as quickly as possible Flipping through heavy multi volume printed manuals or browsing through l
82. edit electronically rather than by hand He even offers specific tips on using the most common program Microsoft Word s Track Changes and advice on when and when not to take advantage of this tool In Chapter 20 Bruce Maylath stresses the importance of considering international and global contexts Globalisation creating documents that are easily understood in many situations or cultures Localisation adapting content for a particular situation or locale and Translation distributing material in more than one language are explained along with the contexts and rationale for each approach Maylath s examples are designed to help the editor anticipate and prepare for some of the difficulties involved when producing communications for multi cultural audiences The more experience an editor can acquire in dealing with multi cultural audiences and situations the more prepared they will be for l the challenges of working in global contexts Professional organisations As part of a technical communication series Technical Editing has strong connections to the field and professional organisations for practitioners Much of the book is tied to the goals and mission of the Society for Technical Communication STC Chapter 6 includes Dayton s survey of STC members and in later sections Rude and Faton refer to a few official STC publications ethical guidelines for technical communicators guidelines for authors and a gu
83. engthy PDFs tends to distract even the most technology hardened composer and several years ago it was obvious we needed something better The solution would need to be comprehensive interactive and online It would also need to be able to import our existing content be easy to use so we could focus on the content and provide adequate search cross platform context sensitivity and conditional text capabilities It needed to be a complete single source solution to all our documentation problems When we were looking for a solution I heard of a new product called MadCap Flare so I downloaded the trial version and gave ita test drive What resulted was a completely new online help system that replaced all our previous resources and we haven t looked back Today virtually all of Finale s documentation is authored in Flare and our printed offerings have been reduced to a small quick reference guide Flare offered the solutions we needed and there is good reason to believe more music is being created these days as a result jo Finan 2012 ae n gt a RAE A E A z CE Cangir a e de E A ee ee ee Ee a O A Hiiieiccrs lo Frais BOGE tara boa E Pirma 2017 interface Charges e Peas ice Frais Tras Chace viiei Ercponpada suis a Ti I 1 Hina do Lisa ree Fires Limas biara a USER MANUAL aargh dar hag on narri Whats New s QuickStart Videos Tutorials s Visual index Leam abou Fe mi
84. er 2 The Help View which hosts various tutorials and lesson content Some tutorials have sample files that the user interacts with while walking through the various steps Communicator Spring 2012 With some products say a GPS or brain surgery tools you do not want the user learning and doing simultaneously In many products however it is an option for the user to learn on the job They can follow a tutorial with prepared examples or during a real scenario open up a tutorial related to the task at hand and apply it in real time Home and personal electronics microprocessors and many software products fall into this category The user gets back to doing more quickly after learning or does them simultaneously and therefore knowledge is transferred more effectively We have all been on courses or read articles without the time to apply the skills afterwards We know it vastly reduces the impact of the learning experience As a trainer the saddest thing I can hear from a student 3 months after a course is Tve not had time to practice or apply what I learnt When using products users Try to accomplish a task Hit a barrier Cannot progress get confused frustrated Break context from the task at hand and go into a new context of seeking content Find content Evaluate its relevance to their task If applicable consume it which might require an entire learning flow and commit it to
85. er F att eo daemons Dai card ae ben Char Puros urea de ere A y Ft er eae Dal a a eer ees ore Pow be phj Panett ee TEGOLE PD ue Encyclopedia Reference Trout Communilles A 9 compere Se 1 disie deuom oF Dearth Parada i rara Pia a OF LT o o e a OS Bhi ee AA P Pere Fiaa bog aa wa Figure 1 The welcome screen for the online Finale user manual includes a search box and a menu that offers instant access to each of the provided help resources Communicator Spring 2012 Migrating to a modern platform Back in 2007 Finale s user manual was a collection of PDFs and a printed tutorial manual We also provided context sensitive help accessible through help buttons which included a lot of duplicate content and was authored in a completely separate system Adopting Flare to create the Help system was a bit of a bold move at the time because the software had only been introduced the year before But after some stress testing and a chat with the MadCap folks at a local conference I was satisfied it was reliable and the solution we needed The decision has paid off even across products Our success using Flare to deliver dynamic context sensitive Help for Finale meant it was the obvious choice when upgrading the help system for MakeMusic s other product SmartMusic the award winning interactive application for enriching music practice We have been enhancing both help systems using Flare ever since Rethinking our a
86. ers usability specialists content editors graphic and user interface designers It covers the user documentation process for designers and developers of documentation It describes how to establish what information users need how to determine the way in which that information should be presented to the users and how to prepare the information and make it available It is not limited to the design and development phase of the lifecycle but includes activities throughout the information management and documentation processes It also provides minimum requirements for the structure information content and format of user documentation including both printed and on screen documents used in the work environment by users of systems containing software It applies to printed user manuals online help tutorials and user reference documentation This is the core standard of the series In addition to these standards and keeping abreast with the latest developments in software design WG2 has also added ISO IEC IEEE 26515 2011 Developing user documentation in an agile environment to the series It provides requirements on information management and documentation processes appropriate for software projects that are using agile development methods Other forms of documentation are also required during software and systems development and WG 2 has also produced and recently revised ISO IEC IEEE 15289 2011 S
87. ets Users sign in with their Twitter account choose a target locale and pick a product to translate web Ul mobile applications apps help documentation etc This helps boost Twitter s business by engaging users and volunteers to help out Twitter and more translations means more international users will start using the site Facebook also uses crowdsourcing Volunteers interested in translating the site installa translations app that enables the users to translate and also review strings Facebook s translation app presents users with words that need to be translated then they submit their entries The system invites other users to vote on which translations are best This helps make sure the translations are factually and technically correct and also that they aren t dropping any offensive cultural clangers As with MT with crowdsourcing the review stage is crucial Crowdsourced translation apps don t know how to trust the crowd Some of the crowd may try to resolve them with fake translations so the organisation needs to get lots and lots of feedback from reviewers to make reasonable statistical guesses about which translations are real Bogus translations do not help an organisation s reputation It is difficult to engage the crowd and maintain control quality Crowdsourcing may not be a reliable solution in the long term since it could be difficult to motivate and sustain volunteers and you h
88. etworking opportunities and promotes technical communication as a profession To join the ISTC change your grade or get involved in what we do contact the ISTC office on 44 0 20 8253 4506 or istc istc org uk The Council and its supporting team Paul Ballard President president istc org uk Peter Fountain Treasurer treasurer istc org uk Theresa Cameron International international istc org uk Elaine Cole Administration istc istc org uk Membership Linda Robins membership istc org uk lain Wright iain d wright btinternet com Marketing Rachel Potts Marketing marketing istc org uk Gordon McLean Website webmaster istc org uk Twitter ISTC_org Complexity made clear Expert documentation and localization services Community Elaine Cole Local Area Groups areagroups istc org uk Emma Bayne Surveys emma bayne telia com Andrew Marlow InfoPlus Editor newsletter editor istc org uk Elaine Cole Forums istc istc org uk Professional development and recognition Alison Peck Education education policy istc org uk Education Administrator education istc org uk Galyna Key UK Technical Communication Awards awards istc org uk Communicator journal Katherine Judge commissioning editor istc org uk Technical Communication UK conference David Farbey tcuk istc org uk Resources Linda Robins review manager istc org uk Emma Bayne ISTC History emma bayne telia com
89. extually related content from the web into embedded help This adds more content in a single development step than the organisation will ever have time to create for their users If opening the user generated floodgates is too scary then why not just syndicate Ableton s own content into its application Every month I get new tutorials and how to content through the Ambleton Facebook page http on fb me able fb which automatically absorbs all of its YouTube content of course but the application itself remains static for a year or more between product updates The barrier as so often I believe is two fold 1 Getting those with content skills to work in harmonious partnership with those who have user interface user experience and product development skills is not easy 3 DITA XML is the structured format of choice Different managers budgets schedules and so forth get in the way Most companies do not share a tag library metadata taxonomy to hook together application and content Just sharing unique page identifiers for context sensitive help seems to be about all that can be managed 2 Content still written in unstructured formats i e not DITA or a flavour of modular XML means that re using the same content online in PDF print and in the application is very expensive Conclusion I have described the components of a social approach at the high level and having been involved in prototype developments t
90. fact additional testing is how we learned about our issue with Adobe Flash on 64 bit systems saving us froma poor experience for users on 64 bit operating systems Do you have the technical expertise to create a custom solution or would an out of the box help authoring tool video feature work best for you Getting videos in help files working was one thing Integrating the required JavaScript into our help authoring tool took additional research and work Deciding if the investment of time for integration and upkeep is worth the effort is something that must be done for every organisation Conclusions Ultimately adding video to our help files was the right decision for our customers We received great feedback and were able to implement our content in more than one platform We learned a lot along the way about how to do it successfully The schedule for video creation and integration needed to be worked out much earlier than the schedule for traditional written only help Once included we had to take a hard look at our solution and thoroughly test it In the end we are convinced that the positive experience our customers have reported back to us justifies the additional time and energy spent including video in our help files Wj Matthew Dyer is an information developer at TechSmith Corporation where he plans and develops user assistance content for their desktop enterprise and web applications E m dyer techsmith com
91. ficient at that task If the spokes and the wheels arrive at the spoke hammerer s position at exactly the right time and this is repeated for all the different tasks in the line the car can be produced at the lowest unit cost One of Henry Ford s famous quotes about the Model T was Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black The Model T only came in black because the production line required compromise so that efficiency and improved quality could be achieved Spraying different colours would have required a break in the production line meaning increased costs more staff more equipment a more complicated process and the risk of the wrong colour being applied Using the car manufacturing metaphor we can say that technical communication is still largely in the coachbuilding era where artisans hand craft unique document products using all in one tools such as FrameMaker Word RoboHelp and Flare Non standard products Figure 2 The chassis maker s product Royce 15196 Royce Ltd via Rolls Royce Enthusiasts Club Figure 3 The coachbuilder s boast no two alike Advertisement for Carrozzeria Castagna coachbuilders with non interchangeable components are produced at a cost that only the wealthy customers and employers can afford Technical communication as a profession risks going the way of coachbuilders still around but as an eccentric coterie producing lovely and obso
92. for mobile applications It is not restricted to traditional user documentation Enter this competition and showcase your talents to the UK technical communicator community The winners will be presented with their awards at the annual Technical Communication UK conference www technicalcommunicationuk com You can submit your own work or that of your managers colleagues or direct reports The competition is open to all and is not restricted to ISTC members How do you enter To enter download and complete the two forms on the ISTC website http tiny cc istcawards Any questions Do you need more information to decide Is your work too confidential to share Contact Galyna Key at awards istc org uk to discuss your options Entry Deadline 30 June 2012 Communicator Spring 2012 President s view Once an optimist The mixed signals from individual businesses and the wider economy have been playing havoc with my sense of what the immediate future holds for technical communicators During January and February I had a series of meetings with old and current customers and with freelance authors working on projects with my colleagues in which I heard tales of mass redundancies offshoring new big teams setting up and organisations recruiting I can scarcely recall a more turbulent time in our profession Those of you who know me or who have read my previous articles as ISTC President will know tha
93. g 2012 12 Embedded social content social content In case you were tempted Ableton Live can definitely not be dismissed as a simplistic artistic tool Although it is for artists the PDF manual is well over five hundred pages and as we will see only covers a portion of the vast array of learning materials demanded by users See Figure 3 for a full categorised list It also integrates with literally thousands of third party plugins and takes various add ons and modules from Ableton and their strategic partners Musicians however are not technicians and are an archetypal example of the user who wants to Accomplish tasks fast before inspiration goes Avoid being encumbered by flipping through reference manuals to find facts Avoid time spent learning esoteric concepts Leverage the full range of features that a highly complex technical product provides Ableton Live has various types of available help to facilitate users There are various social sites and multimedia materials online on Ableton s own website as well as a PDF manual that can be used completely offline for learning concepts or when the screen real estate is at a premium The most unusual ones are those embedded directly into the application window itself The Info View See Figure 1 and the Help View See Figure 2 for the Help View and Info View in context of the full UI It is a simple design decision but has a profound im
94. g Translog and choice network analysis unpublished thesis P h D Dublin City University Organization for the Advancement of Structured Info Standards OASIS 2008 XLIFF Version 1 2 Retrieved 12 July 2011 from http docs oasis open org xliff xliff core xliff core html Princeton University 2011 About WordNet Retrieved 02 November 2011 from http wordnet princeton edu Publications Office of the European Union 2010 Eurovoc Thesaurus retrieved 27 January 2010 from http europa eu eurovoc sg sga_doc eurovoc_dif SERVEUR menu prod MENU langue EN Rascu E 2006 A controlled language approach to text optimisation in technical documentation Proceedings KONVENS 2006 pages 107 114 Konstanz Germany Reuther U 1998 Controlling language in an industrial application Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Controlled Language Applications May 1998 Pennsylvania Carnegie Mellon University Reuther U and Schmidt Wigger A 2000 Designing a multi purpose CL application Proceedings of the Third International Workshop on Controlled Language Applications CLAW 2000 Seattle WA 72 82 Rico C and Torrejon E 2005 Translation technology in Spain The Observatorio de Tecnologias de la Traduccion Localisation Focus Volume 4 Issue 2 Limerick LRC Roturier J 2009 Deploying novel MT technology to raise the bar for quality A review of key advantages and challenges MT Summit XII proce
95. g an Element Owner for the EHS system volunteering in HealthAhead projects and organising social events I even ended up doing a tri relay challenge in Hyde Park with GE as part of the World Dextro Triathlon Challenge As sponsors of the GB Triathlon Team it was important for me as an ex sportswoman myself to show my colleagues Be adaptable that sport is not only for all but it can be fun You have to love This is the first time GE Oil Gas have had a what you do member of the ISTC too so it is important for No one wants to me to promote the benefits of that in house and employ someone project GE s image externally By far my biggest who will be unhappy achievement to date is working at GE I never or lose interest thought that I would end up in a mechanical electronic environment and now I feel as if Pm at home It is my dream job and I work with some very talented people A friend commented to me about how I d inspired them We were on the Underground and she asked me how I d done it when we walked passed one of the London 2012 posters It said How to beat Usain Bolt Start a year before him My parting advice to you is just that If you want a job in a year s time stop thinking about it Do something about it otherwise someone else will beat you to the finishing line and win that gold medal H besafe develop working relationships quickly get involved in wider opportunities
96. g to a discipline case Dave was also subjected to what he considered to be a lot of petty supervision and hyper critical appraisals At times Dave felt he was being bullied All in all he was feeling very de motivated and undervalued The crisis came one morning when Dave arrived at work and found himself in his car saying out loud Tve had enough He sat there for some time unable to make his way into the building He decided that he had to take control of the situation He considered his options He had 20 months to go before retirement and could possibly afford to retire early but was that the best course Dave s dilemma What are Dave s options Should he resign stay with his job or retire Should his employer have been honest and made him redundant In the new organisation there was no job for him as a Technical Author Should Dave stay in his job and allow the situation to develop There were many unknowns in this path and Dave wasn t sure if he could handle the stress and the effects on his health Should Dave resign and sue for constructive dismissal He had been moved into a job he didn t want and couldn t do and threatened with discipline procedures when he failed to perform it to their satisfaction Resigning would have been easy enough but staying for the three months notice period would have been difficult followed by legal expense and stress Should Dave take early ret
97. ge 1997 Hutchins 1998 Terminology databases also known simply as term bases contain definitions of terms from a particular domain stored in a centralised resource jas that is updated by several different users Hutchins 1998 Beaupre 2010 believes they are essential resources that facilitate consistency throughout digital content Terminology databases are available online InterActive Terminology for Europe or as terminology database TD software files SDL Multiterm MTW files for example Generic terminology databases like the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation FAO terminology database are usually freely accessible online Generic termbases can be monolingual or multilingual like InterActive Terminology for Europe IATE the world s largest multilingual terminology database with more than 8 million terms European Commission 2009 Organisation specific terminology databases focus on specific terminology related to an organisation s products and services Glossaries lexical databases and termbases all facilitate the process of terminology management an essential factor in the publication and maintenance of consistent accurate and relevant content across publications and delivery formats Hutchins 1998 Roturier 2009 Hurst 2008 Author Memory An Author Memory AM is a repository of previously created text segments that have the potential to be reused in different contexts Murphy et al 199
98. ges in this authoring guidelines experiment was an estimated 5 650 total cost savings 7 500 time spent 1 850 Brockmann 1997 Allen 1999 and Hurst 2008 believe however that AM works far more effectively with consistent and highly repetitive material which lends itself more to text reuse Style guides Specific low level authoring guidelines are often published in style guides and controlled languages A style guide is a rulebook containing standards for designing and writing content N bel 2004 detailing decisions for spelling grammar and formatting Bright 2005 Style guides promote consistency throughout digital content Bright 2005 Beaupre 2010 improve the quality of communication Bright 2005 and are critical for multi authored works Bergeron and Balin 1997 O Broin 2005 believes that adherence to style guides is an essential component of the authoring process Generic style guides contain rules for writing in general or within specific domains Bright 2005 Organisation specific style guides also known as corporate or house style guides such as the Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications Microsoft 2004 contain rules for technical writers to produce content for a specific organisation Reuther and Schmidt Wigger 2000 Haller and Schutz 2001 Bright 2005 Rascu 2006 Corporate style guides are Communicator Spring 2012 46 Resources rces The main benefits of controlled
99. hat look at round tripping knowledge in the way described my feeling is that these are but the tip of the iceberg Our market needs to push forward for the benefit of our users Instead of waiting for the user to ask for help we can constantly and proactively make contextually relevant content available for consumption The internet and metadata lets us absorb knowledge from all available places and deliver it in the appropriate format for the users potential needs As a Client recently said to me We know the content s out there The user just wants our help to access it H References Urbina N 2010 A super role for technical communicators Communicator Spring 2010 Special Supplement Noz Urbina is a Senior Consultant Trainer and Content Strategist for Mekon Ltd During his over 10 years in the content arena he has provided services to Fortune 500 organisations and small to medium enterprises often around DITA and XML management systems His expertise is brought into projects for requirements analysis management presentations project planning and scoping and tool selection support He is a frequent speaker at conferences around the world delivering keynotes talks and seminars on content strategy technical communications and structured content best practices Noz has held a number of business development technical services and sales positions where he was able to develop his expertise in a cu
100. he more the product is made offshore the more likely it is that the documentation for it will follow The companies that are still designing or building here or delivering services here are keeping and growing their authoring teams here It seems to be the less innovative products whose manufacture and documentation will sooner or later be moved from the UK to a low cost centre However I believe the UK economy is embarking on a renaissance in high tech innovation and export led growth Alongside the tales of teams disbanding my colleagues and I are seeing a significant rise in smaller technology or software companies recruiting technical communicators or buying in technical communications expertise for the first time My extensive though admittedly anecdotal experience is that relatively few of those technical communicators who have been made redundant from large teams in the last year are still out of work now Months and years of trying to compete with the growing threat from low cost centres even if you inevitably lose forces you to innovate as best you can and that process gives you skills and perspectives that are valuable to other potential employers Always an optimist So there you go Despite the gloomy news and the defeatist predictions I know that opportunities are still here in the UK for technical communicators and I have seen clear evidence of the appetite and capacity in individuals to innovate an
101. heat One way to create a Strategy is look at and emulate what is working for others Find the brands that you think do things well and copy them With the industry changing so rapidly this is one of the best ways to learn about new features and how to use them effectively Become an expert in the field One of the best ways to become influential across different social networks particularly Twitter and LinkedIn is to become the public expert in that field providing not just information about the product or brand but about other news in your field Try to provide not just information but additional analysis of how you think current events affect your field Become a statistical geek As well as the analysis tools you should already be using from your website many of the social networks have powerful features to look at the demographics of your audience You can also look at your users and followers with similar interests which may help direct future advertising For example in my field many people who follow Autodesk Navisworks also have an interest in building information modelling BIM and construction this knowledge helps us with SEO planning Use URL shorteners such as bit ly or tinyurl to You don t need track where your links are posted and how experts you can they spread most good URL shorteners will do it have in depth tools to allow you to see who else posts your link how many clicks they have received
102. hen you write you now write for the world You publish online and vast multilingual audiences read your content The rapid growth of social media has fuelled this explosion of dynamic uncontrolled content More and more organisations are now using social media to reach out to their communities and stakeholders Social media is not a passing fad it has created a fundamental shift in the way we communicate It is published rapidly in its source language but how do online users and organisations deal with the translation and localisation of social media And how can localisation providers address the challenge of this online publishing phenomenon and make the web truly multilingual Over the past few years there has been a significant increase in the number of organisations using social media tools to disseminate information and engage in regular dialogue with stakeholders and communities Our Welocalize Christmas 2011 email greeting directed people in our community to our Facebook page which enabled us to make a charitable donation based on the number of likes we received Although it is difficult for organisations to truly quantify the commercial benefits of social media many are accepting that it is now an integral part of the marketing Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg stated on his Facebook page that The web is shifting towards more social and personalised experiences Table 1 Other social media sites available If
103. hnson is a writer and editor with Flare include the use of breadcrumbs that with over a decade of publishing and documentation show users where in the system they are and experience a mini table of contents beneath the body of E markjohnson makemusic com Communicator Spring 2012 Producing Communicator Communicator 51 Communicator the proofreading process After typesetting Communicator goes through the proofreading process Linda Robins describes how she proofreads a third of the articles in this journal In the Winter 2011 issue of Communicator Tony Eyre explained his role as a copy editor for Communicator Td like to tell you about a later stage in the preparation for publication I am one of three volunteer proofreaders helping to prepare your quarterly journal for publishing How does the process work My involvement begins with a PDF file of the pages destined for the next issue of Communicator Typically I receive the file three weeks after the copy submission deadline which leaves me with a week to 10 days to carry out the task Usually my batch represents a third of the total material for the issue Katherine will have checked proofreaders availability before allocation of articles to the three volunteers Since I manage the book reviews page this page is included in my batch and I also liaise with the writer for approval of the proof version of the review The task The proof I receive is the typese
104. hods Parts 3 and 4 dive deeper into the experience of editing First focusing on the standards of grammar mechanics and style the text then goes beyond these basics to address the principles that guide comprehensive editing projects The final section Part 5 presents the editor s wider responsibilities with regard to legal and ethical considerations the larger processes of production and project management and interpersonal relationships with clients All five sections are organised along the lines an editor s career trajectory might follow As the preface explains most editors prove themselves as copyeditors before accepting responsibility for comprehensive editing Rude 2011 xxi Technical Editing likewise begins with the simpler types of editing building chapter upon chapter toward more complex processes The big picture Opening Chapter 1 with The Big Picture Rude and Eaton place the role of the editor in context among others who handle technical documents readers users writers and stakeholders Though this beginning section is shorter than the later more detailed how to sections of the book the big picture approach to editing never gets left behind Rude and Eaton connect each step in the editing process to the overarching goals and purposes of editing as a whole These overarching reasons are brought to bear on each scenario and case study presented reminding the reader at every step
105. iagonal se et ber 7 index 1004 owe wel 4 108 o dor pd s tyle poriticn sbeclute font weight normal tap 899px font cite Mpx left 848px M e cons gt m Gon oy amp tte etry lr tebe boy bt Mole Rody amp 16 SCenvesFremePere StervesFiome Scarves Mei body Sern Sadi_om_bullos o Figure 8 The code behind the GUI authoring tool A E roee ipp gae biopon t se i o titlall a pe A gt ee _ _ Pe te Yew Pate Tom ep ELO Pie Bents bios Cog E Meee Mar 4 de Mora de Dee e me E taggatnd Soe A e indi Dp m hee Gee Temo de A Serves ere AA es Design the Home poge i G08 Bac procuro image 2 Edm Logo wage Y l Manage sa qQebon balers pta iaa t hey ape or pow verse page Y le od hme honti e s more about it here icon Display Name Austin BBQ CLICK ICON TO DEMO APP Search gt Uploed An image A Be sure to upload a 512X512 PNG to get best results coro why w CE i Make my icon glossy Upload an image Be sure to upload a 640X960 PNG to get best results some E Need design help rire gt profes cons from our design marketplace r Figure 10 The new app screen from appmakr Communicator Spring 2012 appear The Viziapps data management lets authors use Google Docs spreadsheets as a data repository for many apps SQL or web services for high end needs But mapping data be
106. ico 2003 Most controlled languages restrict vocabulary and syntactic constructions at a sentence level with the exception of ASD Simplified Technical English that analyses text in a wider context Bernth 2006 O Brien 2006 CLs may be classified according to whether they are generic or organisation specific what content they address how many rules they contain which quality attribute they aim to improve or whether they are human orientated CLs HOCLs machine orientated CLs MOCLs or dual orientated controlled languages DOCLs O Brien 2003 O Brien 2006 O Broin 2009 Generic controlled languages such as Basic English ASD Simplified Technical English Controlled Language Optimised for Uniform Translation CLOUT and Controlled Language Authoring Technology CLAT are sets of CL rules developed for generic content rather than the specific content developed by an individual organisation N bel 2004 O Brien 2006 Muegge 2009 Organisation specific CLs such as Caterpillar Technical English CTE and General Motors Controlled Automotive Service Language CASL on the other hand aim to improve the quality of the proprietary documentation produced by a particular enterprise Torrejon and Rico 2003 Broin 2009 Another method of categorising CLs is by the number of rules ASD Simplified Technical English for example has approximately 61 rules while CLAT has 73 CL rules in total N bel 2004 Rascu 2006 Nortel Stan
107. ide to writing for an international audience The inclusion of these references reinforces the themes of professionalism Rude and Eaton are hoping to embody in the text Rude 2011 xx Likewise the references to STC documents in this published textbook reinforce the ethos of that organisation and its importance as a professional asset for all technical communicators Summary Technical Editing clearly shows why editing is important part of technical communication The responsibilities of an editor as a communicator are made evident throughout the text Technical Editing is a wonderful review and handbook for beginning editors but of course it cannot replace a comprehensive style handbook For definitive answers to questions about documentation formatting or citation styles consult a true style guide such as the Chicago Manual of Style Another concern might be how soon the information in sections like Markup Languages for Online Documents and Change Tracking in Word Tips and Techniques Rude 2011 64 86 will become dated and less useful for new students While Technical Editing s brief sections on SGML HTML and XML are fairly general these kinds of digital technologies change very quickly and often unexpectedly instructors may need to adapt these sections as technologies develop in new directions Though the specific technologies in the text may rapidly evolve beyond their treatment in Technical Edit
108. iety for Technical Communication The Technical Communicators Association of New Zealand The IEEE Computer Society The IEEE Professional Communication Society The Project Management Institute In parallel to this work many of the WG 2 experts also participate in SC 7 WG 22 Software and Systems Engineering Consolidated Vocabulary which has prepared ISO IEC IEEE 24765 2010 Systems and software engineering Vocabulary this is freely available at www computer org sevocab Glossary BSI The British Standards Institution www bsigroup com FDIS Final Draft International Standard IEC International Electrotechnical Commission www iec ch IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers http standards ieee org ISO International Organization for Standardization www iso org JTC Joint Technical Committee SC Sub Committee WG Working Group Further reading Hodgkinson R 2011 An introduction to ISO Standards Communicator Summer 2011 Richard Hodgkinson FISTC has participated in the development of ISO IEC ISO and European standards since 1990 During that time he has served as project editor for nine ISO standards addressing software documentation icons and accessibility In addition to convening ISO IEC JTC 1 SC 7 WG 2 he has served as UK expert in ISO IEC JTC 1 SC 35 User interfaces ISO IEC JTC 1 Special Working Group on Accessibility ISO TC 159 SC 4 WG 5 Software ergonomic
109. igure 1 shows the new default dark green ribbon UI and Figure 2 shows a light blue version of the ribbon UI users can change the ribbon theme within Flare Speaking as an experienced Flare user going back to V1 I find the ribbon format much easier to read and find options Both experienced users and people new to Flare will probably find the new ribbon format more comfortable to use Another user friendly feature added is the ability to add buttons to the Quick Access Toolbar similar to Microsoft Office By default there are Save Save All Undo and Redo buttons You cannot remove these buttons To add a custom button right click on an option and select Add to Quick Access Toolbar For example I added Build Primary View Primary and Publish Primary to my toolbar as those are commands I use frequently see Figure 3 A further usability enhancement is the ability to display keyboard shortcuts for all menu options by pressing the ALT key similar to Microsoft Office To hide the keyboard shortcuts press the ALT key again New output formats This version of Flare provides two new output formats HTML5 EPUB HTML5 output The new HTML5 output format supports the HTMLS5 specification defined by the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group WHATWG http whatwg org and World Wide Web Consortium W3c http w3 org Some of the key features of this new format include E Providing all the features
110. in the parent TOC It is good practice to perform any of the above actions on any child books before their parent book What about page numbers You have the ability to control the styles used throughout your book If you wish you can have different numbering styles for each folder or sub folder However you cannot set up numbering styles for groups In summary a file s page numbering is determined by its folder s properties In the case of a sub folder with no properties the page numbering is taken from the folder above it in the TOC hierarchy A chapter in a group automatically increments the page number sequentially Summary The addition of a TOC hierarchy has vastly improved the management of large Adobe FrameMaker documents You have much greater control over how your content is organised and the ability to control page numbering styling throughout is a much needed bonus Maybe I ll cover that next time Let me know what you think My contact details are below SS eee an Colum McAndrew MISTC is a Senior Technical Author based in Guildford UK A user of Adobe technical communication products since 1999 he can frequently be found on their support forums offering advice to other users W www cmcandrew com robocolumn E robocolumn cmcandrew com Tw robocolumn Editing 55 UK to US English If you re thinking of writing a document in English will you be using UK or US English Jean Rollins
111. ing the foundational principles in the text will remain valuable for technical communication students and JYUUN IC VW gt d practitioners By grounding editorial conventions in clear but complex rhetorical situations the text encourages a smart flexible cooperative editor Because so much of what technical communicators are expected to do might more accurately be described as editing compiling selecting reorganising updating developing and redesigning texts Rude 2011 xix a book like Technical Editing is a priceless resource for technical communicators wherever their work might be focused Even for experienced writers and editors Technical Editing serves as an invaluable reference book About the authors Dr Carolyn Rude is Professor of English with a specialisation in Rhetoric and Writing at Virginia Tech University Dr Angela Eaton is an Associate Professor at Texas Tech University Her research interests include technical communication pedagogy and practice especially within online environments Know how for Global Success ZE LOCALIZATION WORLD Informative sessions on global business best practices strategies for going global global branding obtaining venture capital global websites localization and translation management Keynote Speaker Large exhibit hall with service and technology vendors Gustav Praekelt Founder and CEO of Praekelt Group and founder of the Praeke
112. ing experience for users Matthew Dyer from TechSmith explains why it can present challenges as well Some learners prefer video for the visual and auditory aspects while others prefer the self pacing of written text accompanied by images TechSmith is an organisation known for our video creation desktop applications Our Camtasia product line is an industry leader in screen recording and our user assistance team spends a lot of time creating screencasts to help users of all of our products learn To leverage those videos in our in product user assistance we decided we wanted to provide our users access to video in our help files Because we support a varied set of applications we need to support a variety of help file types For our Microsoft Windows applications we use the Microsoft Compile HTML Help CHM format For our Apple OS X products we use Apple Help books Both of these formats support video each is essentially just a specialised web browser Before we could implement videos in our help files we needed to understand both why and how we were doing it The why The actual process of deciding what type of video we wanted to include in our help file involved quite a bit of discussion Were the videos going to be supplements replacements or alternatives to traditional help topics A supplement to a help topic would be a supporting video that enriches the existing content We envisioned these as short clips one min
113. ing support as required This often manifests itself in tasks that only a few years ago would have fallen on Council members So the Council member s role is one primarily of design and organisation with access to a wide group of Council members our administrators who can carry out tasks as directed and external suppliers as required The benefits Being on the Council does enable me with others to influence what we do in the ISTC how we do it and to be part of a happy band of enthusiastic volunteers Sure we can t do everything we would like such as Professional Status or global domination but being in the thick of it enables me to influence the direction of the ISTC And that for me is worth the effort that I put in Finally If you would like to attend one of our Council meetings get in contact with the office You could come to our currently once a year face to face meeting usually held in November in London Alternatively feel free to talk to a Council member at conference an area meeting or directly by arrangement The ISTC would benefit from your involvement but the person to gain the most may well be you Editor s note Why not have a look in InfoPlus for volunteer vacancies or contact a member of the Council listed on page 7 AAA AAA Peter Fountain FISTC LCGI E treasurer istc org uk Embedded social content AMEN 11 Inside an organisation users like support or field
114. irement In doing so he would lose out on nearly two years contributions to a final salary pension eee Warren Singer MISTC E dilemma istc org uk Over to you Write to dilemma istc org uk Tell us how you think Dave should solve his ethical dilemma The next issue of Communicator will feature your responses If you have a dilemma you d like advice about write to us in confidence If we think your issue would be of interest to a wider audience we ll air it here Don t worry we will protect your anonymity Note To protect the identity and reputations of real people all names and places are fictitious Ethical dilemmas eluate 57 Real life responses Readers letters in response to Paul s dilemma described in the Winter 2011 issue of Communicator Summary of Paul s dilemma Paul had written a chapter in a book about technical communications The book s compiler editor had originally promised there would be revenue share but when Paul received the contract from the publishers no revenue share was offered and he was being asked to surrender all rights to the story What should Paul do Should he allow them to use his story and publish surrender his rights or withdraw his contribution to the book Due to the limited space available extracts from the responses are provided here Katherine I think that Paul deserves recognition for his work and should be named in the publication as the co
115. isting content videos and articles about interesting ways the software is used or how users can achieve improved results We then use all the social media channels to direct traffic to this blog and other parts of our company website Within the blog we have links to free trials of the product and other social networks we are on It also includes the ability to easily share content and there s an avenue to contact us to suggest future content for the blog This won t create a social network following on its own so you should look to build it into your communication strategy Make it a habit One of the biggest mistakes people make when dipping their toes in social networking is not updating regularly or even worse forgetting about the accounts and letting them go dead and conversations remain unanswered Whether you use LinkedIn Facebook Twitter or another network make checking them a habit Get mobile apps and check them whilst on your way into and home from work set up tasks in your calendar to make sure you regularly monitor the networks and keep doing it every day If you will be managing multiple networks then look to use one of the aggregation tools for the task such as Alternion LiveGo Netvibes Hootsuite and MultiMi Some are browser based others are desktop applications most have additional features to manage multiple users accessing the same accounts so you can delegate tweets or messages to different people C
116. jobs or locate niche groups covering a wide range of industries The power of LinkedIn comes from the networking potential to reach other customers suppliers and experts in the field through your own current network of friends and colleagues As with Twitter there are lots of opportunities to add value to existing conversations Search for groups related to your industry there are likely to be some already set up if not create your own If you have a product or service people would look for tips on then create a group about this and link people back to it through your other channels See Figure 2 If not then try to look fora unique angle on your industry and use it to be seen as a leading figure Here you will represent e da rod bon Pires Sen he Art bey Prest ae b Top nfucecers recogmses Y Log tahomx es Vias Week ol def ig Mg doesnt nng your CODI NALOS A D520 cross or ot least last bme ined Wath coordinates mean you vee pome gt Manis A Selechon Sets Does anyone yone have a good set of standards or Dest crachces 10 ilow in creating Selection Sete in a poeci oris siways very project Nts SEE Aden A Sha ed Lee M lisa turta an akt AAA Figure 2 Linkedin screen for Autodesk Navisworks Communicator Spring 2012 your brand as an individual so you should again check your rules of engagement Google Google is seen as the network with the best chance of disrupting Faceb
117. languages are improved consistency clarity and readability translatability customer satisfaction and potential content reuse SESS Lorcan Ryan is currently undertaking tad a PhD at the University of Limerick in association with the Centre for Next Generation Localisation CNGL and Scientific Foundation Ireland research grant 07 CE 11142 He also has a degree in Business Studies and a MA in Technical Communication Lorcan has worked as a technical writer lecturer localisation trainer and accounts manager E lorcan ryan ul ie W www ul ie y Communicator Spring 2012 necessary due to the proliferation of different authoring technologies which increases the risk of inconsistencies in documentation style tone and content Allen 2005 Controlled languages Authoring guidelines are also published in controlled language rule sets A controlled language CL is a subset of a natural language O Brien 2006 that restricts the grammar style and vocabulary of that language in order to reduce its ambiguity and complexity and improve its consistency readability translatability and retrievability Reuther 1998 Mitamura 1999 Bernth and Gdaniec 2001 Torrejon and Rico 2004 Rascu 2006 Controlled languages constrain grammar and style to minimise elliptical constructions multiple coordinated sentences conjoined prepositional phrases relative clauses and ambiguous language Mitamura 1999 Torrejon and R
118. lanning and delivering projects over emphasise the project process and any related tools to support delivery Scrum acknowledges this but believes that it is more important to foster productive teams who essentially are the people who are going to deliver the work Given this we have spent time ensuring that the mix of skills and individuals are appropriate for the task in hand furthermore we have ensured that each team member has received the necessary empowerment in the Scrum method Scrum also places an emphasis on a working product over comprehensive documentation In short this is saying that the product is more important than the associated project documentation In the context of our project we are spending time developing a documentation solution to meet the challenges outlined at the beginning of this article over producing an array of project plans business cases and risk registers and so on the types of project artefact some organisations develop to document their project process 27 The method also focuses heavily on regular customer collaboration This is a change in thinking to those approaches often called waterfall methods that rely on fully understanding the project requirements at the outset Communication is inherent within the methodology so developers can receive regular feedback on product deliverables to fine tune them in line with the users requirements Figure 1 depicts this scenario where a tea
119. lays most videos steadily lose viewers once Play is clicked with an average 10 39 of viewers clicking away after ten seconds and 53 56 leaving after one minute See Figure 3 Video hosting sites like Vimeo don t have the same level of analytics and cross promotion to other videos and websites that YouTube does Audience Attention Span gt 5 min gt 3 min gt 2 min gt 60 secs gt 30 secs gt 20 secs gt 10 secs Figure 3 Courtesy of Tubemogul and their article How Much of a Typical Video Online Is Actually Watched J 19 You may find the cleaner interface better in other sites but if the video itself is compelling then people will not care about the frame The biggest issue with YouTube is restrictive IT policies that may prevent access If you are in an industry where this is likely to happen then you could look at alternative hosting environments whilst trying to increase the analytics available Other networks Larger organisations can look at networks like Yammer and Present ly that allow companies to create their own internal social network for sharing news and progress and industry stories These can be used to communicate strategy and messages across a company and to share relevant content with colleagues You have the networks now what In my own field people are much more interested in the workflows than the features themselves So we have a blog where we create and re purpose ex
120. le for the heading at the start of every topic This is appropriate for the Help output because each topic is effectively a self contained document However it does not make as much sense for the print based output where all the topics are appended together The result would be a document with an almost totally flat structure Flare enables you to fix this situation by providing an option that automatically adjusts the heading level of every topic at build time based on the topic s location within the table of contents This highly important option is on the Advanced tab of the print based Target settings and is called Use TOC depth for heading levels see Figure 3 Still to come in Part 2 In next issue s MadCap column we will look at how to set up auto numbering for headings explain how we can set WinWriters Inc synthe PEA PO ZE y A A PT a 9 Convert to footnotes Expand text inline i Advanced Language Remove the body J PDF Options Generated TOC Warnings Figure 3 Option to use TOC depth for heading levels up margins headers and footers using Page Layouts and explore what we can achieve by adding Chapter Breaks to our table of contents A IA A RA AA A Matthew Ellison MISTC is an independent consultant and trainer who has specialised in software user assistance since 1986 He runs the annual UA Europe confe
121. le to afford cars cars needed to be cheaper This idea sounds simple enough but in reality it meant bringing the cost of a car down from around 4000 twice i nn a Utah State Historical Society and the Shipler Commercial Photographers Collection Communicator Spring 2012 the average annual income to less than 1000 Different manufacturing ideas had already been introduced such as outsourcing the Olds company came up with this when their factory burned down and using standardised parts that could be interchanged among several models an idea developed by Cadillac Remember this is an allegory so the words outsourcing and interchange are important to note In 1908 Henry Ford introduced the assembly line for motor vehicle construction The first car model to be produced on the production line was the Model T The assembly or production line replaced the coachbuilding method of building cars where cars were built individually one by one Ford s assembly line was what we would now call transformative process engineering The assembly line was built on a foundation of standardisation standard processes to produce simple components in a standardised production system To understand how standardisation created such an opportunity for efficiency we need to know the methods that preceded those of Ford The terms standard processes simple components and standardised production systems are key to the allegory Co
122. lete products that very few can afford Let s look at the parallels Parallels In the coachbuilding era a single craftsman or team of craftsmen would create each part of a product They would use their skills developed over years as an apprentice and tools to create the individual parts Those same craftsmen would then assemble the parts into the final product making trial and error changes in the parts until they fitted This is the same approach that many technical communicators currently use to produce manuals One or more technical Communicator Spring 2012 Communicator Spring 2012 sar ee lia im oam Figure 4 A coachbuilt Mini for the wealthy Sales Brochure for Harold Radford Ltd Cr THE UNIVERSAL CAR Figure 5 The Model T The Universal Car Portion of Ford Model T advertisement communicators creates each part of a manual They use their skills and tools such as word processors and page layout software to create the individual chapters pages and images They then assemble them into the final manual making trial and error changes to the layout until the text fits Let s analyse this allegory a little further The assembly line was made possible by two major technological developments Tool path control where jigs and templates provided a means for repeatable consistent use of tools Machine tools such as power drills lathes and milling machines These developments not only impro
123. logy o We have the global presence o We will help you succeed o We are O welocalize The On Demand Translation Leader www welocalize com 44 0 1829 730050 Welocalize trading as Lloyd International Ltd ISO 9001 FM 59627 Communicator Spring 2012 22 Social media media Communicator Spring 2012 by the webmaster or developer Within social media sites the majority of content that is published by the users is uncontrolled and even elements of the UI are uncontrolled as data within the site is constantly changed by the users This poses a challenge not only for the site developer but also localisation services providers when localising social media software Today s solutions Most social media sites are available in more than one language Although Facebook launched in February 2004 it didn t launch the first lot of multilingual sites until 2008 When Twitter went online in February 2006 it was available in English and then Japanese It wasn t until October 2009 that more multilingual versions became available Today the most popular methods for tackling multilingual web content are machine translation MT post editing MT using a human translator and crowdsourcing Machine translation and post editing Most organisations do not have the resources to maintain multilingual blogs and monitor social media content The most obvious low cost solution that organisations turn to for the translation of con
124. lt Foundation Meet professionals from Fortune 500 companies and many more See their presentations Learn from them Discuss The Praekelt Foundation a technology incubator develops open source mobile technology solutions to improve the health and well being of people living in poverty The foundation has reached over 50 million people across 15 countries in Africa e Net Translators e Welocalize e Across e ATRIL Information and Registration www localizationworld com Communicator Spring 2012 54 Adobe tips tips The Adobe technical communication Colum n In this regular column Colum McAndrew offers tips tricks explanations and advice on Adobe technical communication products In this issue FrameMaker TOC structure I m often accused of being ultra tidy Whilst I draw the line at ironing sheets or socks yes I know someone who does this my large CD collection is sorted alphabetically It shouldn t be a surprise to those that know me therefore that my need for neatness crosses over to my professional life When it comes to complex Adobe FrameMaker documents this manifests itself in the book s Table of Contents What is a structured Table of Contents TOC Adobe FrameMaker version 9 and later adds the ability to organise your files into folders or groups Allowing you to nest files into folders and group them together removes the flat structure of previous versions Whilst the flat structure is n
125. m Selects an item from a backlog of work and develops it in an iterative fashion until it is a functional deliverable Currently we are producing our documentation in such increments and distributing these as usable chunks of learning to our audience as opposed to developing manuals in their entirety The last point of the agile manifesto relates closely to the previous idea of customer collaboration Scrum focuses on responding to changes over a rigid plan developed at the outset Most of these changes will arise from frequent meetings with users to receive their feedback Scrum advocates this idea as plans tend to change In the context of our project we are producing documentation sets so we need to receive feedback on the content we present to the end user community In addition to these ideas what is essential to Scrum is how a team is organised Specifically it has three very distinct roles a product owner a development team and the scrum master 1 Product Owner PO The PO is responsible for managing a product backlog that is essentially a ranked list of the customer s requirements 2 Development Team DT The DT is the people who do the work 3 Scrum Master SM The SM is responsible for managing the process to ensure that the DT adheres to the Scrum ideology Applying Scrum to the challenge So given these principles and roles what does the Scrum method contain to address our challenges How are we moving from a
126. memory or give up if no suitable content was found Return to the using doing flow and apply any learned knowledge In the using flow the benefit is more straightforward embedding help and interactive tutorials which operate in the context of the product mean that context and concentration are not broken or are less damaged during the process of finding and consuming the helpful content Finding content becomes vastly streamlined because the system is feeding me the exactly appropriate content for the precise user context Products today are often smart enough to know where the user is in a use case and what state the product is running in and use this to filter the vast amount of available resources down to either the right content or a short list of candidate content snippets How to improve on Live socialise it The main points covered have been Social media content is encroaching on all aspects of corporate communications and is gaining credibility as a way to get quality product knowledge internally and externally Embedded content allows transfer of knowledge integrated in the product experience and enhances learning by integrating product experience into education But the market is still treating these largely as independent initiatives Socially enabled E embedded content would be the synthesis of these Live s content is fantastic and reams of it is social as shown in Figure 3 but the embedded
127. n the strategy comes together involved Twitter If you have an interest or passion in your area then you should be on Twitter either as a sheep or a shepherd Either look to follow people and companies of interest and pick up new information in the same way you may use RSS feeds to keep on top of your industry Or if you have the time and knowledge then look to become the expert that everyone in the industry should follow Don t be tempted by schemes to quickly gain followers it will add nothing to your presence other than more spam to deal with Concentrate efforts to get quality followers will create quality conversations and more satisfied users Use searches to follow topics related to your field and join in conversations don t interrupt though but try to add value when you do get involved You may want to look at a personal account rather than a branded one If you do go down the route of a personal account be honest when describing your role be aware that you represent your brand A disclaimer saying that views are your own will not save you from a talking to from the boss or worse when you Communicator Spring 2012 18 Social media media Use aggregation tools to manage multiple networks Home Have something to say JOP PODA te Yee te cetceete n he LIDO POS you er ytu LOr Commer Ore Coe What is Linkedin pool pan LALA tapote Your view GB Most Popular Descussions CCr anyone help on wnti
128. n which we can customise the presentation layout sign posting and navigational support within our print based output that will enable the users to get the best possible experience from the information we provide Here are some of the design aspects that we should consider Fonts and formatting Although we have probably chosen to use a sans serif font such as Verdana to maximise the readability of our on screen Help we may want to use a different font for our print based output We may want to reduce or remove the use of colour and perhaps introduce an italic font style for emphasis While our Help output may use relative font sizing that takes into account the user s preference for text size we will need to choose an appropriate fixed font size for our printed output And it may be appropriate to use different paragraph spacing and indentation in the print based output Positioning of navigation and reference devices In our Help output the table of contents index and glossary are Communicator Spring 2012 presented in a dedicated navigation pane alongside the topic information We don t have this luxury in our printed output and will need to position these items at appropriate locations towards the beginning and end of the document Cross references and sign posting In on screen Help we can rely on hyperlinks to get users directly from one topic to another related topic By contrast in our printed output we may
129. nce with a wide variety of organisations for example 1 I volunteered on an open source website A quick search on the Internet and you ll find any number of sites crying out for volunteers 2 Apply to local firms for example software pharmaceutical or engineering organisations or charitable trusts for work experience They welcome interest but they also need to keep their costs down and very few people want to do documentation 3 Brush up your interview technique Practice practice practice My background was in software but Iam now in a mechanical electronic environment How did I end up there I believe my employer saw potential and I was interested in what the company manufactures where they are going and I was interested in working with the people I met during my interview I brushed up on industry knowledge and remembered some key advice given to me as a child the smallest detail can often be the most important In my case it was the importance of seals on the tools that my company produce In my childhood it was the grease nipples on a steam locomotive So what am doing now Pm now a Product Development Technical Author in Downhole Technology at GE Oil amp Gas Wow that s a mouthful What does it involve Well it means I have to work very closely with mechanical design engineers and electronic engineers A basic knowledge of maths physics and engineering helps as does an ability to read drawings I
130. nd functions Social recognition Unlike other media in social media we retain our identities while consuming and creating content We login as ourselves Tagging Tagging refers to labels metadata and other taxonomy information that is attached to content so it can be categorised and especially related to other content Ranking Ranking can be automatic like when the system reports can turn up the Most viewed knowledge base article It can also be manual for example when a user opts to give a How to 5 stars Relationships which can be Manual where a user makes an explicit cross reference Automatic when content is tagged and labelled with metadata for example a computer can establish that two articles are about installing apps on iOS so they should be linked This is the same mechanism through which news websites link new and old content and third party and original content When Reuters sells some content related to the economic crisis to a local Portuguese news website no one needs to manually add see also links to locally written articles they are tied together automatically by their subject area Personal when individual users learn about each other form relationships and have dialogues on the platform User generated content and knowledge The core of the social application is the content users create while using it In the corporation examples include The articles tha
131. ne assistance for mobile devices Also several major conferences have had presentations on user assistance for mobile devices in the past two years including the Society for Technical Communication STC Summit the WritersUA Conferences and LavaCon Finally MadCap consistently enhances the usability of Flare based on user feedback in new releases Among some of the miscellaneous enhancements were improvements to the Add Files wizard Add New Project wizard ability to set PDF options in your Flare project and more customisation options for PDF output Table of Contents and Indexes C _ Ed Marshall is an independent consultant technical writer and the sole proprietor of Marshall Documentation Consulting with over 24 years in technical writing He specialises in technical documentation for developers including API application programming interfaces SDK software developer s kits Web Services products etc Over his career Ed has developed expertise in using tools to let the computer do the work such as advanced tools for editing files comparing files and searching replacing text He has presented many talks at local STC chapters the STC Conferences Technical Summits the WritersUA Conferences the DocTrain Conferences and other professional conferences E ed marshall verizon net W www MarshallDocumentationServices com Tw EdMarshall LinkedIn www linkedin com pub ed marshall 0 501 898 Subscribe t
132. need to provide page and or section numbering and to include these numbers within cross references to direct users to the referenced information We may also want to ensure that each page contains supplementary sign posting information such as the current chapter or section title Of course the design requirements of a PDF file depend to a large extent on whether it will be primarily accessed and read by users on screen or whether it will be printed out and read on paper An on screen PDF is capable of providing some of the key navigation features of an on screen Help system such as search hyperlinks and active or clickable entries in the table of contents and index As a result it makes sense to treat certain information design aspects of an on screen PDF in the same way as you would treat a Help file For example you might decide that cross references since they are clickable should be presented as blue underlined text without the need for page references Flare s support for print based output The following headings describe a selection of key features that Flare provides for addressing the information design requirements of print based documentation Print specific formatting Flare enables you to define print specific formatting using either of the two following methods By using a separate print specific stylesheet and associating it with your print based Target Figure 1 shows how you can select a ie
133. ng it When the application has been personalised and configured the Info View even picks up some custom parameters and interleaves the user s content into the pre written content The decision to embed help this way is quintessentially task oriented It tries to avoid anything that disrupts the task at hand I can say as a user that having real time continuous content in tiny snippets fed to me while working is not annoying or distracting it simply integrates itself into the work so that learning happens almost unconsciously We will tie this all back to social media shortly but bear with me while I dig deeper into task orientation and the impact of embedding content It is all about the tasks I am regularly re emphasising that our goal in technical communication is to facilitate the user experience Take this potential technical communication content strategy statement We will make accurate best in class manuals help and tutorials available to our clients in the format of their choosing Sound good Strategic I think it is neither Users do not want manuals or tutorials The want to know things so they can do things Figure 1 Ableton Info View The bold text and square brackets at the bottom indicate keyboard shortcuts Therefore we know that hitting will show or hide the Info View They want the knowledge that is in the heads and on the hard drives of engineers technical communicators trainers an
134. ng rules for clash desechon is there a standard for Jon Today ALNOCOSkK Newrsworks Discussions Oto complex projects Ce anyone help on writing rates for ciaeh Getection y there 8 standard for complex projects aer Date loss export speed parameters 3D wres retaned Daniel G Sign in Revit Export DWFX v NWC Vinst are me ao amas and dao tapes of exporting Reve aa MWE or OWE endorse competitors products over your own or say something controversial Also ensure that your company is aware you have this account and agree rules of engagement or you may be stung like one employee from Phonedog who received legal action when he took his 17 000 Twitter followers across with him to a new organisation For a work account in the UK you can get away with sending tweets from 9am till 5pm as this will be the time many other people will be happy to read about work related links However the most effective Twitter brands have a personality and getting to know the person people behind the account gives better brand loyalty and tends to be rewarded with inclusions in Follow Fridays which are tweets with the hashtag ff where users recommend other interesting and valuable users Linkedin LinkedIn has become the professional social network of choice for many individuals looking to share their knowledge and meet new contacts As an individual you can create your own profile much like an online CV find new
135. nt She wanted to make sure that the usual terms are as follows Warnings are for health hazards possibly you will die Cautions are for equipment hazards possibly you will damage the equipment Notes are for information and for useful detail possibly failure to obey will cause problems but there will be no damage Sometimes the term danger is used especially in the US Sometimes the difference between danger and warning is not clear One member recommended Safety instructions and warning messages in technical documentation by Lothar Franke and Mats Frendahl MSCC Publishing Sweden www mscc se ISBN 978 91 976659 9 5 For a review of the book see InfoPlus November 2010 Some related standards are as follows IEC 60950 ANSI Z535 6 For a review see ANSI Z535 6 and product safety by Mathew Kundinger in Communicator Autumn 2008 BS 4884 Part 2 has definitions of warnings cautions and notes ei Mike Unwalla FISTC E mike techscribe co uk Local area groups The ISTC local area groups are an opportunity for technical communicators to network and share knowledge and expertise The groups are open to everyone from all industries in the local area you don t even need to be an ISTC member to attend and it s free The groups meet at intervals over the year and hold talks peer discussions demonstrations and social evenings If you re interested in attending o
136. ntributor of his chapter With regard to the rights of the chapter I believe that Paul should retain these However when authors contribute to software manuals individuals are not always given credit and therefore Paul should take this into consideration But in this instance the contribution is about Paul s personal experience and therefore he definitely needs recognition Maybe the only way to resolve some of these issues would be to approach a copyright lawyer to find out his rights Roger What s the fuss about Paul s lucky his chapter was accepted for publication He s gaining recognition for his work and free publicity and advertising Okay he s put in time and effort but he agreed to this and it was collaborative As for revenue share for academic publications it would only be a token amount not worth worrying over Anna If he had been promised a share at the Start then it would be wrong for the Editor s note editor or publisher not to offer this that would have been misleading James Hey no one s forcing Paul to contribute If he s not happy with what s being offered then he should pull out It s just a question of supply and demand if the publishers really need his piece they ll be prepared to pay Unless there are other Chumps out there who ll be prepared to do the work for nothing and line the publisher s pockets In most technical authoring contexts technical auth
137. o Communicator Would you like to receive an award winning quarterly journal Communicator regularly includes wal Ftc g Articles by some ofthe top 10 technical mA unicator communication bloggers A i Articles on case studies writing indexing E translation localisation illustration and more Regular columns on ethical dilemmas international standards editing and more 4 issues UK 38 Europe 45 rest of world 50 a Enquire about the 10 discount for INTECOM Subscribe today istc istc org uk www istc org uk Communicator is the quarterly journal of the Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators The UK s Leading TECHNICAL o i 7 commMUnicaATIOn Technical Communication a 2012 Event Confirmed Keynote Speakers Conference Keynote Speaker Specialist Stream Keynote Speaker Leah Guren is an internationally Karen Mardahl is always eager to discuss recognized speaker in the field of accessibility and usability topics with technical communication and devotes technical communicators She believes in her time to consulting and teaching encouraging technical communicators to courses and seminars in technical do their part in making products communication to global classrooms and services more inclusive for all people Marriott Gosforth Park Hotel Newcastle 2nd 4th October 2012 Early Bird Prices available from 10th April 2012 www technicalcommunicationuk com Communicator Spring 2012 MA case study
138. of mass produced assembly line cars including the humble Mini Hooper the Rolls Royce coachbuilders created the first luxury Mini in 1963 at four times the cost of a standard Mini The most famous of the Hooper Minis was one owned by Peter Sellers this car featured a hand stencilled wicker work effect body decoration Radford Coachbuilders produced the Radford Mini de Ville which was snapped up by celebrities such as Britt Ekland all four of the Beatles Mike Nesmith of the Monkees and Marianne Faithful A standard Mini Cooper cost 850 while a Radford cost 2 500 Even today over a century after the introduction of Ford s assembly line coachbuilders still exist but they have become niche companies servicing the wealthy Car manufacturers with a reliance on coachbuilding are now all but extinct Now remember this is supposed to be an allegory How is this history of car manufacturing symbolic of the business of technical communication I ll get to that shortly Any colour so long as it s black The assembly line is a manufacturing process where parts are added to a product in a sequential manner using division of labour where one person repeatedly performs only one small portion of the entire process Practically speaking this means that one person s job might be to hammer the spokes into the wheels nothing more nothing less The spoke hammerer becomes an expert at spoke hammering and becomes more and more ef
139. ogy 57 European Commission 2009 Translating for a multilingual community retrieved 21 February 2011 from http ec europa eu dgs translation publications brochures index_en htm Haller J and Schutz J 2001 CLAT Controlled Language Authoring Technology SIGDOC 01 October 21 24 Santa Fe USA Haussteiner 2004 Collaborative translation for Europe s central banks MultiLingual Computing amp Technology 61 Volume 15 Issue 1 January February 2004 Sandpoint MultiLingual Inc Hogan J 2005 Localisation in Australia Localisation Focus Volume 4 Issue 3 Limerick LRC H ser H 2003 The use of XML in localisation MultiLingual Computing amp Technology 55 Volume 15 Issue 1 January February 2004 Sandpoint MultiLingual Inc Hurst S 2008 New authoring strategies increase reuse and consistency Retrieved 28 May 2010 from www sdl com en sites sdl trados solutions new authoring strategies increase reuse and consistency asp Hutchins J 1998 Computer based translation tools terminology and documentation in the organizational workflow Report from recent EAMT workshops Retrieved 07 December 2011 from www hutchinsweb me uk Vienna 1998 pdf Kohl J 2008 Language quality assurance software Optimising your documentation for a global audience Intercom 55 5 May Lommel A 2004 2004 Translation memory survey Retrieved 19 June 2010 from www lisa org Microsoft 2004
140. on marks with double quotation marks inside US English puts punctuation inside the closing quotation mark Em rules and en rules Spaced en rules are used in UK English for parenthetical dashes i e to set apart part of a sentence whereas US English uses unspaced em rules Both UK and US English use unspaced en rules for ranges in numbers and dates and in compounds such as the Jones Brown theory where Jones and Brown are two different people Capitalisation after colons In UK English you only capitalise the word that appears after a colon if it is a proper noun In US English you capitalise the word if it starts a grammatically complete sentence This is something that needs careful consideration and if you are not sure it is sometimes safer to rewrite the sentence to avoid the issue Serial commas Americans seem to be far fonder of the serial or Oxford comma than us Brits and it is generally expected in a list of more than two items Grammar Which that with a comma US English is far stricter on this rule so if you know that your work will need to be suitable for both UK and US audiences then it is worth making the distinction from the start as it won t be wrong for the UK although it may be viewed by some as a little pedantic Basically the rule is if there is a comma use which if there isn t use that This is really to do with the difference between restrictive and non restrictive cla
141. on explains some of the differences Recently part of my work involved changing documents from UK English to US English This article looks at some things I noted while changing the documents and other points that may be worth considering if you ever need to do similar work It is not intended to be comprehensive The first step is to change the language for the document to US English This should as a minimum highlight the words that are spelled incorrectly for a US version It may also highlight punctuation and grammar errors Spelling My main reference source was Merriam Webster s Collegiate Dictionary 11th edition However there are also many useful online sources for checking American spelling http en wikipedia org wiki User SpNeo Spelling Guide http oxforddictionaries com words british and american spelling I also found that my COED Concise Oxford English Dictionary often includes the American spelling for common words It is worth noting that the websites are not foolproof as they may not have been checked or verified by other people so you may need to use several sources to confirm some spellings Punctuation The following is a list of the main punctuation differences Quotation marks There are two main differences in the use of quotation marks US English tends to use double quotation marks with single quotation marks inside whereas UK English uses single quotati
142. on run the price was 300 and a total of 15 million Model Ts had been produced Even Ford s own factory workers could afford to buy a Model T Without undergoing a revolutionary change in approach are our document products going to get cheaper and cheaper Not if we stick with coachbuilding Like tool path control and machine tools XML and DITA are catalysts that can revolutionise technical communication taking it from coachbuilding to the assembly line and beyond We ll find out what followed the assembly line later XML and DITA these two standards allow information interchange outsourcing specialisation of labour simple re usable components and standardised publication systems but they also demand skilled technical communicators XML and DITA also make it possible to reduce the cost of documentation to the same degree that the assembly line reduced the cost of cars DITA projects sometimes fail because technical communicators try to replicate the coachbuilding approach They want to keep offering manuals in a colour other than black Projects also fail because technical communicators are not skilled in the new techniques of structured componentised topic centric authoring Ford faced the same issue of worker skills Ford recognised that the skills of the workers had a direct impact on quality and efficiency so opened a worker training college and paid his workers a handsome wage of 5 per day This wage was seen as e
143. ook s dominance in social media The value of Google doesn t come solely from the social networking and ability to share to certain groups It comes from the ability to improve your search engine optimisation SEO by using it correctly Google announced at the start of the year that it would be weighting search visibility and ranking of profiles and brand pages on its own network more highly creating more personalised search results and new opportunities for brands The recent announcement that Google is taking one of IBM s patents for a semantic social network show the way that Google intends to take the network forward where combining search history of what you have previously looked for with your network of connections to see how they crossover will offer new ways of interacting with colleagues or potential customers YouTube Don t forget YouTube is a network of its own Allowing people to comment on and share your content will help you guide ways to improve your content and increase the accessibility for other blog users and websites who want to re purpose this content Videos are one of the most compelling ways to interact with your users they can tell a story in ways text and pictures sometimes cannot Short punchy videos are more likely to be watched and shared with others try to keep videos to under 5 minutes and ideally even shorter than that Tubemogul found that across a sample of 200 000 videos and 20 000 000 p
144. ors are commissioned to produce guides or documentation in return for an agreed price rate or salary In these instances the organisation or business commissioning the work has paid for the service and owns full copyright for the material provided that the author has been paid as agreed Revenue share may be an option where an author contributes to the production of a training course book or other item where they receive no remuneration in advance and hence the expectation is that they will share in the profits from the sale of the material In these instances revenue share has been agreed in advance and may be an important factor in an author agreeing to forego initial payment for their contribution The third situation relates to contributions to the public domain through blogs discussion forums or contributions to magazines or journals such as Communicator The author would typically not expect any remuneration and is happy to contribute and would normally retain the copyright on their original contribution The publication of copyright material in academic situations is a grey area On the one hand the author may gain recognition by publication with a prestigious journal or publisher On the other there may not be much profit involved for smaller publications and often revenue share might not be a feasible option everything we print Is green If you are concerned about ensuring your promotional materials are both cost effective
145. oses challenges relating to the capacity for its production and the nature of the content Our software documentation challenges Specifically we constantly produce user documentation to enable our customers to work appropriately with the Council s information systems Given that systems constantly evolve maintaining documentation is continual and labour intensive To this end we are looking for options to save time and costs while preserving the quality of our documentation sets Secondly we face the challenge to meet the specific needs of our user community The Council is committed to the equality and diversity agenda and thus has to ensure that each user has an equal opportunity of accessing system documentation Finally when it comes to publishing end user guidance we face a user community that has varying levels of confidence and a multiplicity of learning styles hence we are striving for a publication solution that hands choice back to the user This will provide them with the capability to amend the look and feel of the guidance in a way that is appropriate to their developmental needs We are thus striving to design and develop a documentation solution and have chosen to use DITA and single sourcing to meet the above Challenges a project on which we intend to use the Scrum project management methodology to address these challenges Scrum and agile Scrum is one of the many types of agile project nn NS Scheduled
146. ot an issue for a book with a small number of files it is when dealing with larger books Adding structure to a TOC not only satisfies someone suffering from the technical communication equivalent of obsessive compulsive disorder it also has many other advantages Folders or groups The first thing to understand is the physical difference between a folder and a group Secondly you need to consider the implications of using each one particularly when it comes to editing the content A folder is a collection of related files organised into a single location However each folder is not a physical folder on the disk it is purely a logical container for the files in the Table of Contents That said a file added to the TOC does not have to be in the same location as the book file In this case the file path is displayed See the reference in Figure 1 to the file CA Data Import fm in the Section One folder Each folder can have one or more files in it You can even create a folder within a folder into which you can place other files or folders In short each folder acts as a section or sub section of the book A group is like a folder in that it is a logical container that also does not exist on the disk However placing Communicator Spring 2012 Course One book ee F KSIDESS FrameMaker Source Files Combined Cour fem Course TOC fm Fra Preface fm fra Introduction frn oa Section One py Getting Started fm i
147. p were considered of inferior quality to American or European cars By the turn of the 21st century Japanese manufacturer was synonymous with consistently good quality While robots replaced humans on the production line they also created higher paid higher skilled and intellectually stimulating jobs in computer aided design and manufacture One of the huge benefits of DITA and other types of XML is the opportunity for document automation In many cases DITA topics can be automatically generated For example Visma Software has developed a little software utility that generates 13 000 reference topics documenting database structures automatically in less than an hour As in the Japanese car industry the automation of tedious repetitive documentation tasks removes drudgery and leaves technical communicators to tackle the more intellectually stimulating tasks Automation really means the automation of drudgery Where now for technical communication The catalysts for change are here As technical communicators we have to make decisions on what path we take We can choose to fight on as coachbuilders finding a romantic niche as crafters of expensive high end bespoke non standard documentation products We can choose to move to the efficient production line embracing the division of labour working to standards engineering tolerance writing for Figure 6 Automation in car manufacture Photo Behrouz Mehri
148. p or How to documentation and guides is displayed in context inside the product or application that is being documented Although many applications are taking up the baton to provide content more actively inside the product the best example that I am aware of is from a company called Ableton www ableton com in a software product called Live Although Live is software the principles apply to any hardware device as long as it has some sort of human readable display and can store or transfer content via a screen or data connection An in car GPS data panel that might talk to the engine management computer a digital camera smart phone or even a modern printer and some refrigerators meet these criteria Ableton Live Live is a music production composition and DJing application Ableton are not clients and I have no affiliation with them I do however use their products So when I describe the improvements to the user experience it is reviewing the theory as a consultant but also from firsthand experience as a user Modern musicians and DJs are an ideal example for discussing technical communications Love it or hate it technology sometimes very complex technology has established itself inexorably as part of modern music production at just about every stage 2 Note I recommend following the work of Gerry McGovern and Jakob Nielsen to learn about the transition from traditional to web writing Communicator Sprin
149. p to 40 per language The leveraging capability of translation memory tools is also dramatically improved when processing highly consistent source content that has been written using controlled language Murphy et al 1998 Torrejon and Rico 2003 Authoring Standards International standards such as TBX Term Base eXchange and XML Lommel 2004 help professional authors impose consistency and compatibility in their output Bevan 2009 These standards are published by organisations such as the World Wide Web Consortium the Unicode Consortium the International Organisation for Standardisation and the Localisation Research Centre Several of these standards including the XML Localisation Interchange File Format XLIFF OLIF Open Lexicon Interchange Format and the Internationalisation Tag Set ITS define categories for storing localisation relevant metadata in XML files Esselink 2003 H ser 2003 Savourel 2003 Frimannsson and Hogan 2005 Rico and Torrejon 2005 OASIS 2008 Localisation relevant metadata enriches the semantic context of digital content and facilitates its accessibility Bernth and Gdaniec 2001 as well as making it easier to identify revisions to earlier versions of the content Bernth 2002 Conclusion This overview summarises the vast assortment of authoring resources and assets available to suit different types of content organisations budgets and so on This researcher recommends that documentation man
150. pact on the user especially for new users When the application is first installed both views are active by default Once you re an experienced user you can hide them as needed The Help View starts out with Set up Configuring the application and integrating into third party hardware and software Lessons A hosting place for more complex content For example every update of the application has a What s new in version X which is a sort of interactive release notes There is also an interactive user interface tour and various lessons for core application use cases with sample files to actually try the techniques described Sounds The out of box content library Reference Links to additional sources of learning like the PDF manual and support The Impact A client once asked me the difference between the Info View and traditional Context Sensitive Help CSH and mouse hover tool tips Again simple but impactful for CSH instead of waiting for the user to need help after they have already become frustrated or confused you just give it to them pre emptively For Tool Tips it seems insignificant but the fact that the Info View is instant and doesn t require a one second hover makes a huge user experience E difference when exploring a highly complex User Interface UD Simply by leaving the Info View open new users can instantly know what every Ul item does and the short cut for triggeri
151. pany wanted a technical communicator to create technical documents for its software developers One member attended a job interview However he did not get the job because he did not know how to write computer code The member thinks that knowledge of programming is necessary for some jobs but not for all jobs What do other members think Communicator Spring 2012 One member works fora software company He does not need to understand the concepts of programming to write the documentation but his knowledge of programming helps when he talks to software developers Another member wrote An author should be able to read and understand the language used when necessary in the functional system specifications but they d always have the engineers to refer back to anyway Warnings cautions and notes In one company that produces telecommunications equipment a member is reviewing the technical documentation The company s employees go to a customer and install the equipment Primarily the documentation is for the company s employees Much of the member s work is to ask questions instead of making changes She gave the following examples The logic in the flowchart and in the text does not match which is correct The measurements change half way through the instructions which set is correct In the documentation the words and the format of warnings for electrical installations are not consiste
152. phics in the online SmartMusic guide help users to readily pinpoint potential issues when troubleshooting a school network set up Visual appeal get online to access the Web based portion of One priority of our most recent update was SmartMusic and our supporting Web based Help creating visually appealing interfaces to system our Help systems that match the look of A second deliverable is the online SmartMusic our SmartMusic and Finale applications We Help system itself believe this is important not only to reinforce We have been very pleased with the way Flare branding but also to create a seamless enables us to respond in a dynamic way As experience as users link to relevant Help topics things change our Help changes with it from the application It ensures that we are giving customers the The process was simple We turned to information they need when they need it so a graphic arts firm that created the user they can get back to making music interfaces for SmartMusic and Finale and asked them to design the SmartMusic and Finale Help pages as well We then implemented the designs in Flare by applying them to the style sheets With our SmartMusic Help we also used a little JavaScript The resulting Help system interfaces Mark Johnson leads the technical communications look consistent and are really appealing efforts at MakeMusic Inc for the Finale family of Other visual enhancements we have added notation products Jo
153. pproach In moving our Help systems to the Web we have had an opportunity to rethink our whole approach to Help from scratch Although familiarity with previous help systems made the transition relatively smooth there was still a lot to learn Fortunately Flare includes very effective help itself with explanations of how to import volumes of content from various sources best practices for integrating cascading style sheets and suggestions on how to approach important tasks like providing indexes and targeted search results On the UI design front MadCap has done a really good job of organising extremely deep functionality with Flare Everything seems to be in the right place and managing different output targets is very easy As a result once there was an understanding of the core concepts developing the online Help was a relatively straightforward process Adding context One of the significant developments with our Flare based Help is that we are now providing several ways for people to access solutions to their problems as quickly as possible This has been enabled both by Flare s topic based approach and its support for context sensitive Help as We have created a series of topics that address common customer questions about each of our products which we update as we gain new insights into where our users want more guidance We have also wired context sensitive Help IDs into our applications so that when users
154. print deadlines but the whole publishing process has become a major risk point to the business and is both expensive and time consuming What next It s time to release your inner tech pub guru Imprimatur can guide and support you as together we re engineer your documents and processes to maximise re use Say YES to thus minimising translation and publishing Expect to be lauded for reducing time to market prepare to be credited with reducing costs Brace yourself for the wonderment of senior management when you outline your plans for rolling out new distribution technologies to enhance the customer experience With our help our customers are stepping into a new IMPRIMATUR era of technical publishing And you can too Document Solutions Imprimatur Limited 22 Church Street Godalming Surrey GU7 1EW England t 01483 791400 e info imprimatur co uk w www imprimatur co uk ILLUSTRATION PUBLISHING TRANSLATION LOCALISATION
155. products it may be possible to add actions to your help where users read or recommend your help files approve or edit your wiki or upload videos and images to your site In general for most countries the most responsive times for creating viral posts tend to be 7am 7pm and 11pm but this doesn t apply to all demographics and if you work across multiple time zones then you should use trial and error to see what works best Many companies are still trying to work out how they can leverage Facebook either as a communication channel or a money making opportunity Using a custom welcome screen and some HTML or FBML Facebook Markup Language you can link to your website a promotional page or allow users to access exclusive content once they Like your page as shown in Figure 1 Applications may be one way to take advantage of the most active users but tend to not be as popular with a large majority Applications such as BranchOut and BeKnown which are looking to add a professional networking element to Facebook by recreating many features of LinkedIn are a potential development in this area though E In my experience Facebook users tend to be Join in initially resistant to new changes but quickly conversations don t accept them as the norm so whilst it may not interrupt though currently be the best platform for a business a but try to add value presence there is a worthwhile investment for when you do get the future whe
156. quick ad hoc chats with peripheral people on the project as well as hear all the latest news and admire photos of weddings or new family members For each visit the team organiser ensured that I had a desk phone internet access and an espresso coffee when I arrived The only downside was keeping an eye on the clock to make sure that I left in time to catch an evening Eurostar train back to Paris A day of pure bliss Theresa Cameron MA FISTC E engelix wanadoo fr ee ee eee eee ee ee ee A ee A ee A A OO A A A A A A A oe A Le OL Oe b r j p A e p a p p p w m z s E A E RE E SE RE RE SE E RE TE E TE E 3 p y y y p m F p p S r e i a o E E E E O E E E E E SE A E A TE A O E E E E RE SE SR SY SS SE E E O E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E TE E E SE SE E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E YE YE YE YE E YE E E p s n n 3 n n y y y P P r r n E p a E E E E E E E E E E E TE os E E 3 TE TE TE TE 3 tT TT FF FF FF a n a n a E RE RE JE GR E SR REY SR SE SF ST SE o o HE Y TY RE aE HN A A A A RT E SE SE 7 373 SS SS SA SE QGo E A E E E E SE E E E E E E SE E E a E SN E E E A A E E SR RE SR SR RSS SS gt gt gt a a 3 3 aF E E SE YE SE YE Y SY SY SS SE SE SE SS SS SS A E E TE TE E E E E E E E E SE E Y ETA TE A SR A A E E E A E A E E E E E E E SE E E TE E E E E 4 E O A A fof E F FF FF A A E A A RE E E SE E E E E A E E E E E E E E E E E E E EE E E E E GE E A A A
157. r 2012 or 11 February 2012 If the date could be misread then it may be better to write it out in full H References New Hart s Rules Robert Ritter Oxford University Press The Chicago Manual of Style The University of Chicago Merriam Webster s Collegiate Dictionary 11th edition Jean Rollinson FISTC is a freelance technical author editor and proofreader She is also an associate of the SfEP When not gainfully employed she plays the clarinet in an amateur wind orchestra E jean rollinson authoring services co uk W www authoring services co uk Communicator Spring 2012 56 Ethical dilemmas dilemmas Real life dilemmas Warren Singer invites you to discuss true dilemmas encountered by today s technical communicators Life s really like that Technical communicators often have to deal with personal issues at work and find solutions to dilemmas for which their education or training may not provide easy answers These stories give examples of real life problems encountered by today s technical communicators What would you do in their situation After reading their story let us know how you would solve their dilemma The best responses will be published in the next issue of Communicator Time to go When Dave joined his new company he was the first permanent technical author they had ever employed At the interview it was clear that they had problems with the whole area of technical communica
158. r help file At the time we used Quadralay s WebWorks software to transfer Microsoft Word documents to the CHM format We ve since move to MadCap s Flare software but use the same custom code solution in both products For our Apple Help books we write our own HTML Most modern help authoring tools have a way to include video or other media in a help file but we had some specific needs and concerns to address Going with an out of the box solution wasn t going to work One of the decisions we needed to make was whether to package the videos inside the help file thus increasing its size considerably or whether to host the video online and load the video remotely for users with Internet access This meant different things for different products For an application with a small download size like Snagit we knew we wanted to keep the help file small Adding several megabytes of video wasn t acceptable If we did host the video remotely and require our users to have an Internet connection to view them what about users with no Internet access We searched for data to discover how many of our users an Internet only solution would adversely affect We weighed this against the added size to our application installer of shipping videos with the help file and decided that hosting our videos online and having our users download as needed was the best solution This meant more work to ensure a good user experience for users without an Interne
159. r the best It s in small companies when there are no guidelines that I have to hope that the marketing department will be able to supply a clean basic style sheet If an existing template has been used by engineers and developers they have the tendency to improve it with their own preferences effectively transforming Word into Weird The back up scenario Although I can be mesmerised temporarily by flocks of green parrots and garden birds gorging themselves on fatballs dangling from the window railings the back up scenario usually kicks in during waiting times This is when I succumb to another passion I use the time to research the history of technical communication hunting for examples of unusual instructional texts from the past that I can write about for Communicator The ideal scenario Most recently I was asked to write a report for a company that I had worked with in the past The first contract had been on the customer s site which required a weekly commute from Paris to Euston and later to Angel Islington Having spent several months onsite I already knew everyone and more importantly they knew me During the research for the report I worked mostly from home sending email queries directly to the relevant expert and invariably receiving a speedy response Occasional face to face meetings in London were set up for roundtable discussions Outside the meetings the office visits allowed me to have
160. r you d like more information please contact the ISTC Office or your local organiser Cambridge Organiser Richard Truscott E Cambridge_areagroup istc org uk London Organiser Claire Hooper E London_areagroup istc org uk North West England Organiser David Jones E northwestengland_areagroup istc org uk North East England Organiser Janine Weightman E northeastengland_areagroup istc org uk Southern Organiser Elaine Cole E istc istc org uk West of Scotland Organiser Katja McLaughlin E westscotland_areagroup istc org uk 0 A g o 3 A m se F VA e VA FE AA F a Ee FR ing funding available SERS ERE ENREE ES AV APIA EN Q2 e ATA EA on E E E COEN You may be eligible for funding towards your training For details of grants that you may be entitled to see armada co uk trainingfunding Technical Authoring Training Print Publishing and Design Online Help Development Programme E learning and Web Content Strategy WWW armada co uk FAY aurmoniseD raining Centre Adobe Armada 6 West Court Saxon Business Park Stoke Prior Bromsgrove Worcs B60 4AD Email training armada co uk Tel 01527 834783 Scheduled courses take place at our training centre in Bromsgrove in the Midlands close to the M5 M6 M40 M42 motorway network All courses available on demand at your venue anywhere in the UK All prices quoted exclusive of VAT
161. red synonymous with the specific popular examples of social media In the same way that saying classical music is not the same as listing names like Mozart Bach and Chopin social media as a genre of communications is not summed up when we rattle off names of sites like Twitter Facebook and YouTube What it is To qualify as social a medium must include a community of stakeholders that simply by using the platform to communicate and interrelate are adding value to the platform itself If you look up the Wikipedia definition you ll find it says something similar albeit using phrases like media for social interaction as a superset beyond social communication which I think actually makes things far less straightforward than they are So looking at social media this way and disentangling it from its more adolescent connotations which 1 Wikipedia itself is a prime example of social media that mainly due to its more controlled nature and lack of videos of kittens often gets forgotten from the list of social media usual suspects still sadly persist we can apply the principle very effectively to technical content creating a socially enabled content platform A social enabled content platform By its true definition your internal technical knowledge Wiki knowledge base intranet or internal support forum most probably qualify as social content applications They have the specific required features a
162. rence E matthew ellison uaeurope com W www uaeurope com UA Europe is a valuable opportunity for User Assistance professionals to update their skills and to share experiences with peers from throughout Europe The conference provides a unique update on all the latest industry trends technical developments and best practices in software user assistance 21 nations were represented at last year s event make sure you dont miss out on UA Europe 2012 in Dublin Sessions include Single sourcing for multiple products HTML5 for technical authors mobile UA best practices usability testing on a shoestring introduction to structured authoring localization in an Agile environment feedback mechanisms adding structure to a wiki the art of linking user assistance for Lean Startups generating good PDFs needs analysis cloud based authoring integrated approach to q gt m panga ka A ae A Ul and UA design intelligent content and more 3 50 discount for ISTC members discount code isTC50 For full programme details and registration www uaconference eu or email info uaconference eu or call 44 0 844 504 2521 Communicator Spring 2012 60 International standards standards New software documentation standards Richard Hodgkinson provides an update on the documentation standards available Anyone who uses application software needs accurate information about how the software will help them a
163. rint based documentation may be required to support different access and reading behaviours even if they contain basically the same information This means that it may be appropriate to organise the content into a different sequence and structure for the print based output by defining a separate table of contents fltoc file You can do this either by creating the file from scratch or by copying and pasting an existing table of contents and then rearranging it to suit the requirements of the PDF output You would then select this new table of contents file in the Target settings for your print based output see the orange highlight in Figure 1 Note that for a print based Target the table of contents effectively defines the content and sequence of the output file Any topic in the project that is not included in the table of contents will not appear in the print based output This contrasts with the behaviour of Help Targets where any topic not present in the table of contents will The only European conference to focus specifically on software user assistance Y 4 ANNUAL CONFERENCE MM 14 15 June 2012 Dublin Ireland WRUTERS UA UA Euro Organised by UA Europe m es a e si ee p i A li p i El A meal still be included by default in the Help output and will be discoverable by Search Changing heading levels In Flare the usual convention is to use a Heading 1 h1 sty
164. roductivity 1 Expert use of industry standard and ITR developed translation tools for consistency efficiency and cost benefits to you Quality assurance to ensure end user acceptance A clear consistent and structured approach to every project we manage for your peace of mind and brand integrity T R Interna tonal Iranslaton Kesources td 1 Dolphin Square Edensor Road London W4 2ST 1 020 8987 8000 info itr co uk Y FS mn VI f Rae MN yee Sia a Danka aan Awa J AY V7 j or YA ON Arinerehir MOM J o l 1 dh AiAi y AUNMAI ic Yo Al ULA yi ii iJ Cc y 4 OOL UN y 2 ALU UI Y LA Do Communicator The quarterly journal of the ISTC ISSN 0953 3699 Production team Commissioning Editor Katherine Judge commissioning editor istc org uk Copyeditors Tony Eyre and Nick Robson Proofreaders Linda Robins Jean Rollinson Andrew Bush and Su O Brien Layout SetFast www setfast org Advertising Felicity Davie felicity tou can co uk 44 0 1344 466600 Subscriptions ISTC Office istc istc org uk 44 0 20 8253 4506 http tiny cc subscribecommunicator E Submissions Guidelines www istc org uk Publications_ amp _Downloads communicator html Deadlines Spring copy by 31 January published 21 March Summer copy by 30 April published 21 June Autumn copy by 31 July published 21 September Winter copy by 31 October published 21 December Back issues www istc org uk Members_Area communic
165. rt thinking about my life beyond caring In 2010 I started job hunting and I not only returned to work within nine months but I started work in a completely new industry The following are some basic guidelines for anyone considering a change or return to technical communication What was my background I made the mistake of thinking my seven years experience as a technical communicator in the software industry that I gained years before was enough However in a competitive world I was by chance given some valuable advice by an existing member of the ISTC You have to be doing the job to be employed as a technical communicator Where did start The answer I volunteered Have you ever noticed how everyone is too stressed or is too busy If you want to be a technical communicator you have to make the time it s as simple as that Make time for yourself all you need is a couple of hours a week or more if you can spare it Of course you have to come across well at an interview but it also helps if you have a portfolio of work to show a potential employer what you ve done and what your potential is If like me you are not good at interviews it s something extra to help boost your application Where can volunteer Ironically Pm looking into this area again to boost my basic mechanical knowledge but before we get into that some advice To break into or return to an industry get as much relevant experie
166. s amp human computer interaction and ISO TC 145 SC 3 IEC SC 3C JWG 11 Basic principles for the development and use of graphical symbols E Richard_Hodgkinson btinternet com Communicator Spring 2012 62 A day in the life day in the life Theresa Cameron gets the best out of any situation At 6 30 am on a weekday I may be in my pyjamas working at my desk or dressed and ready to board an international train at Gare du Nord As a contractor both these scenarios are part of the course for me the routine of a daily commute into a local office being the exception rather than the rule This semi nomadic lifestyle comes from one of my selection criteria for an onsite contract is there a direct train From Paris I can get to Brussels in an hour and a half or be in a London office by 9 am If I include planes in the equation many other European cities are easily accessible The benefits of remote work It s rare for me to work locally in the Paris region although I speak French and German Most French documentation teams don t have editors so I decided to write exclusively in English When I moved to France 12 years ago there was a huge demand for Anglophone writers Now I can indulge a passion for visiting other countries or simply stay at home and work remotely If Pm working for a client in a different time zone then home is best Editing for a Chinese client who is eight hours ahead of GMT means an earl
167. sted by fastspring com Members already have access to the PDFs on the Members Area of the ISTC website so this web page is aimed at potential new subscribers non ISTC members The online version of Communicator is currently set up as a trial as we need to gauge demand If demand is high expect to see this feature expanded in the future The price of an online issue is 9GBP or 14USD We are also looking into providing subscription options This issue Spring 2012 and all 2011 issues are available for purchase Thanks to SetFast and Felicity Davie the advertising agent for their hard Figure 1 Purchase a PDF version of Communicator http tiny cc communicatorpdf work in making this happen If you have any feedback on pricing downloading PDFs or anything else please get in touch I appreciate anything you have to say Katherine Judge FISTC E commissioning editor istc org uk W Subscribe to Communicator http tiny cc subscribecommunicator UK Technical Communication Awards 2012 Each year the ISTC grants prestigious awards to honour clear concise and effective Who can enter EAT UK TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION information products Do you work in the field of technical communication Does your work deserve recognition If the answer is yes then this competition is for you Be innovative This competition is open to technical communication of all kind including websites podcasts and help
168. t version of copy I am not checking the copy against the input my task is to check that the proof copy looks right I am not the copy editor Just as the copy editor resists the temptation to rewrite the proofreader does not tread on the copy editor s toes Traditional proofreading which entails checking the copy against the input is more straightforward in that the proofreader notes all differences from the original and marks these on the proof using standard proofreading symbols In checking the Communicator copy I am not checking against the input I am checking for typos layout issues and inconsistencies of appearance within an article The Communicator house style guide is my reference source Step one On the day of receipt I check that I have the full complement of pages and that they appear to be complete If elements are missing I can query this before I start Sometimes I will have been advised that they are to follow Step two I print the pages and work on a hard copy proof For other proofreading tasks I may read the electronic proof for Communicator copy I always work with the printout to ensure thoroughness I work through word by word for images I check for clarity and consistency within the article with tables again I am looking for consistency I usually work in spells one or two articles at a time to ensure that my proofreader s eye remains focused Step three
169. t I am fundamentally an optimist I am someone who believes in the value of our collective expertise and in our ability to get customers to believe in and invest in that expertise However the optimist in me has taken a severe knock Tales of inevitable decline Here s one example in Swindon there was once a proud and innovative team of more than 20 technical communicators working alongside their mobile telecoms engineering colleagues As of March the final four members of that team will have been made redundant Virtually all of the hundreds of engineers have also gone Global supply chain pressures had started forcing the manufacturing and the associated technical authoring offshore to China and India about six years ago and subsequently even the engineering product design and documentation leadership architecture and English Communicator Spring 2012 quality assurance was superseded by teams from competing European and finally Asian companies I know the last remaining authors well and I know they have tried hard over the years to keep ahead of the cheaper competition with a focus on innovation and quality One could argue that without those efforts the team would have been long gone many years ago A more complex tale In every case that I have seen in recent months the decline in UK authoring capability has followed the path of the engineers either at the same time or after a lag of months or years T
170. t connection but we were confident we could do that Another important technical decision we needed to make was to decide on a delivery format for videos The file format of the delivered videos needed to be something that would play on most users computers without needing additional plugins Our initial choice was H 264 encoded MPEG 4 MP4 video files On the Mac there was built in support for MP4 playback On Windows we would use an Adobe Flash player The Flash player was present on enough machines to be our default solution Communicator Spring 2012 What impact does video have on localising your help The costs of localising video are very different from localising text Communicator Spring 2012 Unfortunately during testing we discovered an issue At the time there wasn t a Flash player available for 64 bit programs on Windows On 64 bit systems by default Internet Explorer is run as a 32 bit process But when the HTML rendering engine of Internet Explorer is used to view a CHM file associated with a 64 bit application then Flash Player is unavailable This meant that users of 64 bit operating systems wouldn t get access to our videos Ultimately we decided that Windows Media Video WMV would be the file format for our Windows help videos Windows Media Player shipped with almost all versions of Windows software and would give our users video regardless of the bit depth of their operating system Sinc
171. t you or your colleagues create share and update in a technical communications wiki Specific knowledge articles often in the form of questions and formal answers in a support knowledge base The various comments and discussions going on around content Communicator Spring 2012 Users of social media and the internet in general are greatly influenced by user generated content In business to consumer markets B2C social content is often given a level of trust above that of an organisation s own content Official content sometimes has a reputation for being incomplete difficult to navigate or otherwise unhelpful If your market is not in this position that is great for your company Generally most people would like to hear something from a recognisable individual over official content even if their only qualification is being an actual user versus Staff Delivering content where users want it Going online in an effective way still flummoxes many technical communications teams Things like XML based single sourcing search engine optimised SEO d content and metadata and writing for the web can be foreign ideas Now the industry has mercilessly thrown social communication on our shoulders Maybe unfortunately for the technical communicator but fortunately for users it does not stop there Embedded content applications are applications where content that could have appeared in manuals online hel
172. tent is MT We all know MT has its limitations if you MT your corporate weblog without human post editing it s not something you can hide There are an increasing number of plugins for blogs and Content Management Systems CMS systems that allow the streamlined generation of machine translated content Translation plugins for example GTS Translation and Wordpress Global Translator plugins will automatically translate and update a blog each time a new post is added The content is pushed through the MT system and then ideally into a post editing workflow so it can be cleaned up by human translators Human post editing of MT is a rapidly growing trend in the market For rapid dynamic content it is near on impossible to tune the source content for translation to suit the MT system and its specific authoring rules So to optimise the quality of localised output post editing and reviewing are both crucial parts of the overall localisation workflow Crowdsourcing Crowdsourcing is also a rapid growth area especially for the localisation of social media Twitter and Facebook both use crowdsourced translation models for their Uls Translation crowdsourcing is simply the act of outsourcing a task to a large undefined group of people In 2011 Twitter launched its translation centre to crowdsource translations for international Twitter users http translate twttr com The crowdsourced translators translate the product not the twe
173. tion and that they wanted him to help solve those problems Work started well Dave began making inroads on the day to day tasks and more importantly Dave thought he started work on proposing how the organisation should tackle its technical communication problems Dave produced a strategy and his manager seemed pleased At this time there were a number of sudden and unexpected changes in senior management the CIO Chief Information Officer went on sick leave never to return the head of IT and the IT development manager resigned at short notice They were replaced by interim managers who proposed a wholesale re organisation of the IT department Soon more interim managers were brought in to manage the IT re organisation Dave engaged with the re organisation team and they were supportive of his technical communication strategy An IT agency was engaged to check his proposals and verify his communication strategy their report upheld his research and supported his strategy proposals At this time the organisation appointed a permanent senior manager to head the change team Again Dave proposed his documentation strategy and was rewarded with enthusiasm and money to run a trial Communicator Spring 2012 However soon after this a new permanent CIO was appointed who decided to implement a totally different IT strategy Dave s trial was put on hold After only having been there four months the new change manager who had
174. tting edge efficiency driven business context E noz urbina mekon com W www mekon com Tw nozurbina B http lessworkmoreflow blogspot com Communicator Spring 2012 Use social media to direct users to high quality content 16 Social media media How to get to grips with social media Social networking is a cultural revolution Lee Mullin explains how you can take advantage of it to help your users Whether or not your company currently uses social media it s likely that there is someone out there who is talking about your brand The big decision for many firms is no longer should or shouldn t they be on social networks but whether or not to answer those people using the these media to talk about them This overview of the key social networks with hints and tips for using each one should help your decision making when putting together a social media plan Let s turn back the clock five years I joined Facebook on 13 February 2007 when there were just short of 20 million users Twitter had only just launched six months before and was reaching 20 000 tweets a day and MySpace was the darling of technology watchers everywhere Roll on to today and Facebook has over 800 million active users Jan 2012 there are over 200 million tweets every single day June 2011 and MySpace is seen by many to have lost its way facebook Facebook helps you connect aad share with the people in yos Me AutoCAD WS
175. tween the app and a repository is more complex than screen design and is the area where most authors especially non programmers slow down A fairly simple data management screen that passes data from a user entry in the BBQ app to the Google Docs spreadsheet can be seen in Figure 11 Data management is point and click but still calls for a conceptual understanding of what you re doing Some general observations about the GUI app authoring tools The GUI app authoring tool space is very new so there isn t yet a standard set of basic features as there is with traditional HATs Authors have to carefully define their needs and some needs may dictate the adoption of a specific tool For example Need data handling capabilities Viziapps appears to be the only choice Need to monetise an app for example the ability to include ads The choice is iBuildApp or appmakr There s also the issue as there is with any new technology of understanding what a feature even is and how it fits into the environment Two examples iBuildApp and appmakr offer push notification Good but what is it Do you need it It s the ability to send SMS messages about breaking news reminders etc to users of your app BuildApp and appmakr have emulators that let you see how your app will look and work before you publish it The emulators run on your PC so your PC uses all its processing power and there are no network delays This is
176. u A Hassenzahl M and Burmester M 2001 Engineering joy IEEE Software 18 1 70 Bevan N 2009 International standards for usability should be more widely used Journal of Usability Studies Vol 4 Issue 3 May 2009 pp 106 113 Bright M 2005 Creating implementing and maintaining corporate style guides in an age of technology Technical Communication Volume 52 Number 1 February 2005 Brockmann D 1997 Controlled language and translation memory technology A perfect match to save translation cost in TC Forum 4 97 December 1997 pp 10 11 Brundage J and McCormick S 1997 Managing distributed MT projects today A new challenge Retrieved 28 January 2010 from www mt archive info MTS 1997 Brundage pdf Campo J 2009 Optimizing the source using translation memory MultiLingual Writing for Translation Getting Started Guide October November 2009 Sandpoint MultiLingual Inc Cobbold G L and Pontes R 2007 Five steps from local to global MultiLingual Computing amp Technology October November 2007 Donato T 2010 Corpus linguistics and the translation process Multilingual Language Technology Guide Getting Started April May 2010 Sandpoint MultiLingual Inc Dumas J S and Redish J C 1999 A Practical Guide to Usability Testing Revised edition England Intellect Books Esselink B 2003 The evolution of localization MultiLingual Computing amp Technol
177. uages Organisation specific glossaries such as the Microsoft glossary for Visual Studio 6 are usually not available in the public domain but those that are available are usually free of charge Symantec 2010 Corporate glossaries may also be monolingual the Adobe ActionScript dictionary for example or multilingual resources Hurst 2008 Lexical databases support natural language processing tasks and attempt to approximate the lexicon of a native speaker by including an inventory of known morphemes and information about their meanings Agirre et al 2000 They are available via online databases Wordnet for example or as lexical database software the Open Translation Environment for Localisation OTELO lexical database for example Generic lexical databases such as Princeton University s WordNet Princeton University 2011 are usually openly available in the public domain they are free to use and offer definitions related to general vocabulary rather than the specific terminology of an organisation Other databases require purchase or subscription such as Cambridge s Lexical Database System LDB The Open Translation Environment for Localisation OTELO is an EU funded lexical database project aiming to facilitate the interchange of terminology using an agreed interchange format Brundage 1997 Hutchins 1998 SAP and other software vendors are partners in the project using OTELO to manage their corporate terminology Brunda
178. us in a number of ways Firstly we are attempting to channel work requests from multiple sources through one person the product owner While there is still room for improvement the notion of having an individual that represents the end users is helping to alleviate the frequent problem of receiving workstreams from multiple sources and struggling to determine the true work priorities After all how do The end users are we aS a team located within an ICT division playing a more understand our customers priorities and know participative role what they adjudge as urgent and important in the content and In addition to the matter of priorities the Its presentation key notion of agile and Scrum in producing helping us to decrease the frequent revisions to documentation usable increments is starting to yield some value to both the end users and ourselves The end users are playing a more participative role in the content and its presentation that in turn is helping us to decrease the frequency of revisions to the documentation What happens next We have briefly discussed some of the benefits we are experiencing on our journey with Scrum however it is a fresh endeavour producing new challenges that are emergent from our current experience Firstly we have explored the notion of a product owner hence we have this in place for a social care system within the Council to govern the work assigned to the development team
179. uses Restrictive clauses that modify focus and limit because the information they supply is essential to the intended meaning of the sentence they are not set off by commas Non restrictive clauses which do not limit the words they modify They simply add information that otherwise would not be provided Non restrictive clauses are set off by commas because the information they provide is supplementary not essential to the meaning of the sentence Singular their This construction is becoming more common in the UK but is less acceptable in the US Personally I prefer Mobile users may wish to upload newly captured pictures from their device to their social network profile to the more clumsy alternative A mobile user may wish to upload a newly captured picture from his her device to his her social network profile Nevertheless for US English you may be obliged to use the latter Different words There are also places where completely different words are used Again I found the Internet to be a useful reference The following sites are worth reviewing if you are not sure whether to change a word www bg map com us uk html www woodlands junior kent sch uk customs questions americanbritish index html Dates It is important to remember that the US uses the format mm dd yyyy whereas dd mm yyyy is used in the UK This is potentially confusing as 02 11 2012 could mean 2 Novembe
180. ute and under that could accompany procedures to give context to our descriptions They could also be short explanatory videos animating difficult to understand concepts A video designed as a replacement for a help topic would have to be more extensive in order to cover all the information that was included in the help topic A replacement style video would also only work for a certain type of help topic what we internally call a tutorial topic as opposed to concept task or reference topics The third option we discussed was an alternative to traditional help Video and written text have different strengths we tend to think of them as two different solutions to the same problem Some learners prefer video for the visual and auditory aspects while others prefer the self pacing of written text accompanied by images In addition a video presented as an alternative to written help doesn t need to cover exactly the same material as the written help itself Every product has different users with different needs so we were reluctant to use one video solution for all of our products As a result we ve tried each of these three variations Each has its own merits and is a viable solution to including videos in a help file At TechSmith we re chosen the third option as our primary type of video The how Concurrent with our discussion about the content of our videos we researched the options available for presentation of video in ou
181. ve now been given the task of improving my basic mechanical knowledge so naturally I ve been looking around for things that I can do away from work My employer can help with structured learning but Pd like to back that up with some voluntary work This helps as it shows my employer I m keen and willing to make an effort The biggest mistake is thinking that your employer is responsible for making you employable they are not You are My voluntary work I ve recently made enquiries with my local steam railway The Watercress Line Mid Hants Railway to see if I can get some experience in the engine shed to enable me to boost my basic knowledge Also I ll be making new friends learning something new as well as contributing to the local community by offering my skills in return for learning new ones With my lifetime s experience around traction engines and scale model locomotives and a basic knowledge of drawings anything could be possible For me doing something practical helps me to learn more However you may wish to do a course at your local college for example graphics design illustration e course development etc Important Back up your voluntary work if you can with a relevant course in technical communication I did an advanced course in technical authoring E as I had already worked in the industry some years before I also brushed up on my software tool knowledge This means going beyond Microsoft Offi
182. ved quality but enabled interchangeable parts In coachbuilding adjoining parts were made to fit each other In assembly lines different parts needed to be made in isolation yet had to fit together when assembled In document engineering the equivalent idea is known as interchangeability blocks of text from one document need to be able to work in different documents and content produced by different 38 Case study technical communicators and even different organisations needs to be able to fit together without rework Interchangeability relies on tolerance and tolerance is defined through standards Some people claim that moving away from coachbuilder writing will lead to a loss of quality Sure there are compromises that have to be made any colour as long as it s black but variety may not be quality Mass production requires components to be built to higher engineering tolerances than hand crafting For parts to be interchanged they have to be of consistent quality and a quality that is specified Document engineering provided it is working to fine tolerances produces consistently better quality than hand crafting Better faster stronger Remember Ford s aim of producing a car that cost 1000 instead of 4000 A Model T cost 825 in 1908 but was 575 by 1912 The price of the Model T kept dropping as the production line process was improved and the skills of workers developed At the end of the producti
183. vision at Solihull MBC He is an experienced project manager ISEB qualified business analyst and systems developer He is one of his organisation s leads for agile project management using Scrum E jma_burns yahoo co uk Cohn M 2006 Agile Estimating and Planning Prentice Hall New Jersey Haberko A 2011 Agile Synergy Communicator Winter 2011 44 Schwaber K and Sutherland J 2011 The Scrum Guide www scrum org Have you thought about joining the ISTC ISTC membership won t change your life But it will help you a great source of information advice and personal development Share skills and experience lain Wright FISTC Meet other technical communicators Information Designer at BT Get recognition amongst colleagues and peers Keep in touch with UK technical communications Keep up to date with trends and technologies Find a job or fill a vacancy O O O O O O Membership benefits include subscription to Communicator journal and discounted access to resources training and events Find out more online ne Gg The home of technical communication excellence in the UK Communicator Spring 2012 ComponentOne D a Contents E A o Author in Word HTML and or XHTML a it r r se i utomatically create a manual and online Help l Automatically struct fomatically structures content and navigation of online Help Dia md Es i Heading 1 automatically become
184. w hyperword blogspot com If a native app does need online help how do we provide it There s a view that any help for an app will be so text light as to be completely different from what we think of as help But can we be sure If it is text heavy how do we create it As it turns out it is possible to create links between native mobile apps and mobile optimised WebHelp to use the latter as quasi context sensitive help for the former I wrote a paper for MadCap Software in August 2011 on how to create such links Email me if you d like a copy There s a view that mobile development which involves things like MIME types and Objective C is too programmatic for technical communicators But that same view was common in the early 1990s Cerent App BBJ in Augin Tk Ippe w Data E ae Gosgl Spneadeneet Tap Dent fer Mapp Danice Bata to your Google Docs Spreadehegs MIR autar bultos How Your Dewce Gats Web Daia Consactao Gospa Docs intedace Liners Guise EH Select a device lap event above and then create Speeadsheat Command with the 2 battens below Click Save whem yoo ane done Spreadsheet Commands i dE Add Condition Before Command ee Add Database Command E inserinto retune ri E from dente held or Custom beet al sd ma hell from deta held or Gumbo ter T add meb site field trom dence held or custom beet g aad city frid E Jasmim ro feedback uF trom data
185. will know this content exists you still need to be good at doing the fundamentals such as in product links emails to customers and making the content accessible on your website Look to the rest of your company to see if you can hijack other communication channels for the content you produce Social media won t replace your marketing mix it just adds another angle so you need to make sure that you aim your content towards the right audience What messages do you want to send out who do you want to reach with the message and do you need multiple channels to do that or will a single channel for a product or brand be suitable for all those messages Will people want to follow multiple accounts This is an easier question for large corporations with lots of distinct products but for a smaller firm or a larger one with lots of similar messages to tell many users would be put off following multiple accounts unless there is significant value in following each product or department At a large company such as Autodesk sending the same message to the media and entertainment industry as to the construction industry wouldn t make sense so we have single product Facebook Twitter and LinkedIn accounts to encourage users of specific Autodesk products to join that community get tips for that product meet other users and become aware of news and updates Social networks Facebook Facebook is the global leader and should not be discounted
186. xas of the elements from Apple s App Store PO vernos ture neti a C mwvizisop no Dura Wizinees PEU r Corn Sep te eT QuUi Y Delete Pacts Desigued Fa Poe Aj taast Ape P ramas e Sent toid Debes Fher Age Pe Test On Oewece Y Pa ae nanan 3 seias nii mg Neves Aimee Eras Apra nome pep Case ate a ewe Do basse P Sanch Saas pre wes Lais Ake Lan dow Cane gt wee vwe wa Counced Age Denge as POF Fre One E E hore page lt eee OA cere baer a Mon ann lobe Ure a et tedden Paid a dd e 2 0 ap O Y as pa betes Figure 6 ViziApps screen design pane Communicator Spring 2012 Another example is shown in Figure 10 the new app screen from appmakr Again straightforward point and click None of these tools are quite as simple as they Button Properties x Internal Button Name add_one_button o Choose Button Color Button Label Add Your Own Listing Verdana vw 16px v Select Font Color Selected Font Color Value FFFFO0 When a user taps the button Go to page v Go to Page add_page v or new Page C And Compute Among Fields Update Button Figure 7 Properties panel for the Add Your Own Listing button shown in Figure 6 e nttos 1157 BEBO com Ma Sty bow position relative tee px wi resizeble nensie ui resi ui resizeble herdic ui resicetle gt see a ager e ten ui resizable nencie ul resizaple se yi con gripsesl1 d
187. xtensive EHS Environment Health and Safety policy that has to be followed by every employee I have had to attend courses and complete online training using our e learning system The second priority for me was to develop working relationships quickly I work in a team of authors within an R amp D environment I have to understand complex designs and terminology This also involves working in the workshops with the engineers taking notes and observing Recently we ve been experimenting with filming assemblies disassemblies This has helped me get to grips with the different parts of the tools It also backs up what I ve seen on the drawings My third priority is to be an effective team member as an author This has meant using in house styles adapting those styles to the changing environment using and creating processes and developing project management skills to get the work completed on time Lastly I have enjoyed my first year I have been involved in wider opportunities within the Some example open source sites include http fedoraproject org wiki DocsProject Join http www writingopensource com https wiki ubuntu com DocumentationTeam http documentation openoffice org http guides rubyonrails org contributing_to_rails html Build a variety of examples in your portfolio Publish it online in the form of a website or put iton a memory stick CD and send to prospective employers company such as bein
188. xtraordinarily high double the going rate for factory workers and Ford added money management courses to the training programme to ensure that his J 39 employees used their wages responsibly And on top of that he cut one hour off the working day Ford s profit doubled in the three years after the introduction of the worker training college Each Ford worker was a specialist and was recognised as such Likewise DITA authors are specialists document engineers that need to be recognised as such Beyond the assembly line automation Henry Ford s assembly line was embraced by all manufacturing industries This resulted in lower costs of mass produced manufactured goods and led rightly or wrongly to the consumer culture But progress didn t stop at the assembly line and neither does this allegory The assembly line method of car manufacture remained the norm until the 1980s when many of the production line jobs previously performed by humans were automated Robots as they were initially described took over a lot of precision dangerous or repetitive processes Not only did automation lead to more consistent components but worker injuries including repetitive strain injuries were reduced Today 50 percent of all robots are used in car manufacture Japanese car manufacturers were the first to take advantage of robots and the perception of quality of Japanese cars was reversed In the 1970s Japanese cars Jap Cra
189. y start to get marked up documentation to them by their end of day I aim to complete the work the night before but I like to check it after a break hence the pyjama scenario It helps to be online early too just in case there are urgent additional requests The customer is after all king The home office also allows me the flexibility to follow up on ISTC Council activities Apart from general Council issues in my role as International Communicator Spring 2012 Manager I try to respond to any international queries and requests sent to the ISTC office or directly to me Pointing a member to a LinkedIn group for work opportunities abroad distributing announcements from overseas associations or perhaps connecting a potential sponsor with organisers of a European event are all examples of such queries I am also the representative for our European partner associations in TCeurope If a European issue emerges through an email thread I pick up the phone and talk to my French counterpart It s not quite international diplomacy but it does help to discuss and compare points of view and negotiate a joint approach especially as the association delegates only meet in person once a year The benefits of association membership Apart from the technical topics I ve also found the ISTC discussion list to be useful for work opportunities As most contract offers on the list are away from home for me another of my selection criteria
190. ystems and software engineering Content of life cycle information products documentation This standard provides requirements for identifying and planning the specific information items information products to be developed and revised during systems and software lifecycles and service processes It specifies the purpose and content of all identified systems and software lifecycle information items as well as information items for information technology service management In addition a New Work Item Proposal to develop a further standard which would address Content management for product life cycle user and service management documentation is currently under ballot This would become ISO IEC IEEE 26531 Wide range of experts Many of the requirements and recommendations provided by these standards are of equal value in the development of user documentation for other products not only for systems and software The WG 2 team has ensured that they represent the consensus of experience knowledge and best practices from the major global and national professional technical communication organisations including The Society for Technical Communication The Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators The Information Processing Society of Japan Table 1 A summary of the new and forthcoming standards Audience User Documentation Software Life Cycle Documentation The Australian Soc

Communicator Spring 2012

Contents

Download Pdf Manuals

Related Search

Related Contents