Your future as a republisher

Visualisation Magazine has created a diagram showing how you can use Web 2.0 tools to increase the number of readers of your content – “building an online presence”. It shows the extent to which content can be republished today, through free sites, Web feeds and embedded content. It also shows how you can monitor and receive statistical information on its progress. So why keep… Read more »

Documentation as flash cards

Here is a nice use of flash cards as a way of providing user documentation. In this case, it’s the legal rights of New York tenants: Designer and artist Candy Change collaborated with non-profit group “Tenants & Neighbors” to develop and produce a boxed set of 30 flash cards on tenants’ rights. The flash cards translate New… Read more »

Managing a documentation project successfully – more jelly and ice cream

This video on simplifying business, using the metaphor of organising a children’s party, made me smile and consider how successful documentation projects are managed. The presenter is suggesting managers need to, in complex systems, give up rigid control from above. Instead, they should watch for organisational patterns, encouraging the good and discouraging the bad. The key to managing a documentation project… Read more »

Did technical documentation play a role in the White House’s decision to move to Drupal?

The reasons for the White House’s decision to run its Web site, whitehouse.gov, on the open source content management system Drupal are being discussed on various Web sites. Alongside Drupal’s functionality, flexibility and openness, some are suggesting that Drupal’s documentation was also a key factor for deciding to use this system.  One commenter said:  For a big project… Read more »

Google Wave – A case study in 21st Century User Assistance

Google’s latest product, Google Wave, provides a case study in how User Assistance is sometimes provided to users for popular Web-based applications. It is a useful case study, because: The application contains unfamiliar concepts and tasks; Google hopes it will be used by many people; and It’s from a major provider of software. While the… Read more »