This video contains edited highlights from Ellis’ presentation at the TCUK 2010 conference on Affective Assistance, which was called “documentation as an emotional experience for the user”. We’re developing a workshop on Affective Assistance – contact us if you’d like to know more.
Cherryleaf Blog
Why Nokia’s David Black is probably wrong about the manual-less cellphone
Nokia’s David Black provided an excellent opening keynote presentation at the TCUK 2010 conference, where he described the documentation produced by Nokia and predicted a bleak outlook for all but the most technical of Technical Authors. David’s team works mostly on developing information for developers and partners, rather than end users. He revealed that 50% of… Read more »
What every business can learn from a Haynes manual
The closing keynote presentation of TCUK 2010, made by J Haynes, Chairman of the Haynes Publishing Group, contained advice useful not only to those creating manuals but also to any organisation looking to communicate information to others. John went through the 50 year history of Haynes, publishers of the Haynes manuals, and explained the reason for the company’s… Read more »
13 is a lucky number for some technical authors
In research for my presentation today on the emotion factor in technical documentation, I came across a recent case study in the US where changing the writing style had resulted in a 13% increase in readership. It took me a few days to realise that a 13% increase must have quite an impact on the… Read more »
Will online video replace the written user guide?
TED’s Chris Anderson says the rise of Web video is driving a worldwide phenomenon he calls “Crowd Accelerated Innovation” – a self-fueling cycle of learning that could be as significant as the invention of print. He claims What Gutenberg did for writing, online video can now do for face-to-face communication…Information often can be taken in… Read more »