RoboHelp Packager for Adobe AIR

Back in the Autumn I posted about Abobe Air and how it could be used to provide a new medium for online Help. Today, I came across RoboHelp Packager for Adobe AIR, which is currently in beta.

It converts RoboHelp 6 or 7 generated WebHelp files into a single AIR file, which can be shipped to the user as an alternative to WebHelp. Air is similar to PDF, in that it will work across different operating systems in a consistent manner.

Will Nokia's new technology reinvent the manual?

Nokia is developing new technology which could reinvent the user manual as we now know it.

Combining a mobile phone's camera with image recognition software, location tracking technologies and improved processing speeds, Nokia intends to provide users with "augmented mobile reality". The goal is to enable anyone to look at the real world through their camera-phone and virtually augment it with information based on parameters such as where they are or what they're looking at. Nokia suggests "you will for example be able to look at a particular building and get all sorts of information about it; or a given shoe model at a shoe store".

The technology works by simply pointing to an object with your handset's camera and either taking a picture of it that is used to apply intelligent pattern matching technology or moving your camera around and obtaining a real-time match of the image. The phone will retrieve this information from the handset or from servers via the Internet. The network uses location tracking technology to know where you are.

In addition to providing tourists with information on building facades and shoppers details on retail products, this concept could also be used to provide users and maintenance engineers with user assistance and instructional information.

There could be a time where you open up the bonnet of your car, point your mobile phone at the engine to (a) identify which part is which and (b) call up instructions on how to remove and replace a particular part.


The technology was first demonstrated by Nokia in October 2007, although it could be a number of years before it is included in publicly available handsets.

Author-it releases update for version 5.0

An update for Author-it 5.0 is now available (Build 5.0.11.625).This update resolves a number of known issues, including significant improvements to performance for JET databases and enhanced table functionality.

The meaning of practice

Outside of running the Sales and Marketing side of Cherryleaf, my hobby is aikido. While my club is training in the evenings, the other side of the gymnasium is being used for acrobatic gymnastics.

They practice the same routines over and over again. And I mean over and over again. Most weekday evenings for hours and hours. I must have heard the each music track a thousand times, and the noise can get a little distracting.

Sometimes a pair will get it slightly wrong, and they'll have to stop and start again. Seeing it so often, you can forget quite what they are doing. Even though some of them are world junior champions, and a lot of them are British champions.

I stumbled across some clips on YouTube of the gymnasts, which reminded me how impressive they are at their sport.

This is a clip of two of the boys in the gym we use:



It's a salutory lesson that it's not practice that makes perfect but "perfect practice makes perfect". Their effort and concentration is terrifying and inspiring all at the same time.

Our client is looking to hire a Technical Author

We have a client in Manchester who is looking for a new technical author to join its team of writers.

This is an opportunity to join a large and progressive company. Our client needs a technical writer to work with a team of writers producing printed and online user documentation for scientific products, (such as that used on "CSI"). These documents are used mainly by field service engineers, in-house support groups and, in some cases, customers.

You'll be writing instructions for the product and system set up, installing spares, and maintaining and troubleshooting the system's components. You'll be working closely with support engineers to create the technical content and with external vendors to create graphics.You'll need to have at least two years experience in technical writing, plus good working knowledge of FrameMaker. Ideally, you will also have a basic understanding of digital photography.

This is a great company that values the importance of documentation and the people that produce it.

Better than Free: User Documentation?

Kevin Kelly has posted an interesting post called "Better Than Free." It's about what succeeds in a market where most assets are free.

"The internet is a copy machine....When copies are super abundant, they become worthless. When copies are super abundant, stuff which can't be copied becomes scarce and valuable.
When copies are free, you need to sell things which can not be copied.
Well, what can't be copied?....

There are a number of other qualities similar to trust that are difficult to copy, and thus become valuable in this network economy... We can start with a simple user question: why would we ever pay for anything that we could get for free? ...From my study of the network economy I see roughly eight categories of intangible value that we buy when we pay for something that could be free."

Kevin argues the eight generative qualities add value to free copies, and therefore are something that can be sold. They are:

• Immediacy
• Personalisation
• Interpretation
• Authenticity
• Accessibility
• Embodiment
• Patronage
• Findability

How does this relate to user documentation?

Documentation is often very easy to copy in itself. However, documentation can also be a mechanism to help create these "generatives" in a product.

Furthermore, these generatives sound familiar to anyone who has ever attended a documentation conference debate on the future of technical communication; in particular: Immediacy Personalisation, Accessibility and Findability.

Perhaps the future value of technical documentation lies in these eight factors?

New how-to/instructional video sites

Another how-to/instructional video site has been launched - Howcast. The video player on the site lets you jump to different chapters or steps, lets you zoom in for a better look, and provides the transcript as well. Viewers can add comments in the form of tips, warnings and facts to each video.

Howcast joins Expert Village, 5min, WonderHowTo, techtutor.tv and Instructables .

The ROI of documentation and support

In two conversations this week, the issue of "how do you measure the value of documentation?" has come up.

The benefits of user documentation (reduced support calls, increase in the perceived value of the product, happier customers, better customer retention, increase product usage etc) can be identified, but it can be hard to measure them and accurately quantify the Return on Investment.

Here are two ideas:

1. Conduct a test with two groups of potential users. Give one group your product to install and use for a period without documentation. Give the other group the product with documentation. Ask each participant (a) At what price should this product be sold for? (b) What monetary value would you place on the documentation? For (a), those that had the documentation should value the product more highly than those that didn't. The difference between the two prices gives you one indication of the monetary value of documentation.
2. If you have a Web-based application, use Google Analytics to measure the number and types of people using the Help pages. By placing a value on each visit (e.g. every 2 Help pages visited equals 1 support call avoided), you have another indication of the $ value of documentation. You can use Google Analytics to measure usage by embedding its code into the HTML of each page. Also, some of the Help Authoring Tool vendors offer analytics software for LAN based Help.