An Introduction to DITA XML - An online training course

We're ALMOST there: "An Introduction to DITA XML - An online training course" is scheduled for release in early 2007. The online training modules have been completed (and are out for testing), and we're now completing the accompnaying workbook and instructions for the exercises.

DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture) is certainly the most talked-about development in the field of user documentation. If you are involved in writing documents such as user manuals, procedures or online Help, DITA promises you a framework for designing and delivering well-structured content efficiently and consistently in a single-sourcing environment.

We have clients who have paid over £900 for us to deliver the classroom version of this course to their writers. By modifying this course to online format we've been able to slash the cost, to make it affordable to individual technical writers who see training as vital to their career.

Writing Sales Proposals: e-learning training course on writing sales proposals

We've just released our latest online training course - Writing Sales Proposals.

This course is for anyone who has to respond to tenders, write persuasive proposals or sell ideas to business people. It will introduce you to a whole range of techniques for broadening your thinking, and other tips used by skillful writers.

The course comprises:

- An e-course on writing sales proposals, presented as online slides with audio voiceover.
- An accompanying workbook, presented as an Acrobat (pdf) document, containing additional information and exercises. The workbook contains over 6,000 words and is over 35 pages long.
- An example sales proposal (in Word format) to help it all make sense.



See Writing sales proposals ecourse

Have you seen the Wii safety manual?

My son is very keen on the Nitendo Wii, which is released in the UK tonight. I stumbled across a Blog highlighting the Japanese version of the Wii's safety manual - very bizarre!

Quadralay's Wiki

Quadralay has added a wiki to its site, with these stated aims:
- Focus on the ePublisher platform
- Provide a reusable information repository
- Encourage users to share their efforts
- Create a user channel to Quadralay's Engineering and Consulting teams

In other words, a user co-generated manual, as discussed in our report. They appear to be using moinmoin wiki. I don't know if the wiki was populated automatically from ePublisher, somehow I doubt it. It would be nice if it was.

Call for input: Next Generation of Microsoft Help Platform

The following was posted on the STC Member Forum, under Online Help.

Microsoft is planning the next-generation Help platform and we are soliciting input from STC members. If you or someone in your organization is responsible for designing, developing, planning, or managing user assistance systems, we WOULD LIKE YOUR FEEDBACK. We want to gain a deeper understanding of how we can help you develop the best possible systems.

The following are some examples of user assistance systems:

* A help system you build for your own products
* A Web site for self help
* A modified or standard Microsoft Windows Help or HTML Help system

We are interested in the user assistance technologies you're using now (whether or not they are Microsoft technologies), what features are important, and what you would like to see in the future. Your input will be a resource for future planning of Windows client- and web-based user assistance development platforms and tools, as well as the Help system.

If your job responsibilities include user assistance systems, please use the following link to take the survey. It takes about 30 minutes to complete.

https://deploy.ztelligence.com/start/index.jsp?PIN=3D138MF8SRCBT43

Please also forward this survey to others in your organization who are responsible for user assistance, whether or not you take the survey.

The survey will be available through Wednesday, December 13, 2006.

If you have any questions, or would like to provide feedback after December 13, contact:
uasurvey (at) microsoft (dot) com

New software - Microsoft Expression

Microsoft Expression is a new software suite released this week that includes professional design tools for standards-based Web sites. Expression Studio is a key component of Microsoft's strategy for improving the user experience delivered by applications. We've yet to test it out, but it appears to be a vast improvement on FrontPage. Rachel Andrew's review - http://www.thinkvitamin.com/reviews/dev/microsoft-expression-Web-designer/

Technical Author Training

We're putting the finishing touches to two new online courses. Realistically, we're likely to "go live" in January. Watch this space!



Also, Carol Johnston is now a Certified Flare Instructor. We should have a second Flare trainer certified this month. We're not aware of any other certified Flare trainers in Europe, apart from Cherryleaf's.