We’ve decided our presentation at the UA Conference Europe 2008 will be on “User Assistance for the future: Simple steps you can take today”. We’ll be looking at developments which may (a) fundamentally change the expectations of users towards User Assistance and (b) change what/how technical authors deliver. We’ll be speaking on the first day… Read more »
Category: Technical Communication
Microsoft Style Guide for Windows 2007?
We received this email yesterday: Microsoft Style Guide for Windows 2007Do you know whether such a thing exists or whether you know of anything else that might help? I am updating the help for our new product and it uses a Windows 2007 ribbon style GUI but I don’t know what all the elements are… Read more »
How many technical authors know about Mooer’s Law?
In 1959, Calvin Mooers, a researcher into the science of Information Retrieval, developed Mooer’s Law: “An information retrieval system will tend not to be used whenever it is more painful and troublesome for a customer to have information than for him not to have it.” Its original meaning meant: people will avoid an information system… Read more »
What Web 3.0 is really about for technical authors
On Monday I had a good chat with John Fintan Galvin, who is a true expert in Web technologies and SEO, about Web 3.0. According to Fintan: “Web 3.0 is all about the automation of connections between resources in a context-sensitive way. These connections can be made between anything defined as a resource, e.g. people,… Read more »
DITA – Slaying sacred cows or burying problems?
There have been a number of posts recently on whether some commonly accepted best practises in technical writing are actually needed these days. This has come about as people question how they can develop the DITA standard to handle things like lead-in sentences and stem sentences. These don’t fit into the standard, and a number… Read more »