UK Govt says “RTFM” to new fathers

Yet another sign that quick reference cards are back in fashion: Plans to be set out in the Families Green Paper will propose better advice and information for couples and address the balance between work and childcare by considering ways to make public services more “family friendly”. Under the Green Paper, new fathers will be… Read more »

The business case for SaaS (Software as a Service)

Intellect’s SaaS group has published recently a paper called “The business case for Software as a Service“. The paper lays out the technical and cost benefits of SaaS, together with checklists covering selection criteria, legal considerations and comparisons of SaaS applications to traditional in-house systems. Cherryleaf made some minor contributions to this paper – so minor we… Read more »

Using barcodes to deliver Help text

Following on from our recent post about Google’s Augmented Reality application and the subsequent comments between myself and Anne Gentle, we thought it be useful to expand on our comments on how barcodes could also be a means for delivering Help text. Google’s operating system for mobile phones, Android, includes barcode scanning capabilities. There’s free,… Read more »

Google, its new Augmented Reality service, and what it could mean for your product documentation

Google has launched its first Augmented Reality application – one that could affect greatly the field of technical documentation in the future. This is probably the most significant announcement in this field since Cherryleaf first began discussing augmented reality and its potential impact on technical documents back in 2008. In 2008, we said: There could be a time where… Read more »

Ten trends in technical communication for 2010 and beyond

Happy New Year! Let’s take the opportunity to look forward into 2010 and beyond. Here are, in no particular order, ten predictions to consider. As we’ve talked about some of these on our blog before, we’ve included links to these earlier posts. 1. The battle between the “Engineering” and “Craft” schools of thought within technical… Read more »