Improving the effectiveness of information

In my article in ISTC's Communicator (Autumn 2007) I explained that developing more effective information products asks for a knowledge-driven approach to communication. This knowledge-driven approach requires first of all that we offer the knowledge needed in a usable and understandable way, in line with the user’s knowledge and level of experience. The second requirement is that we should offer our users the right knowledge - from the enormous amount of available knowledge – at the right time. New semantic technology provides us with the opportunity to support our users in interpreting information within their context. The most important characteristics of these solutions are: non-hierarchical navigation: presents a mind map of the information, with different types of links making it possible to browse quickly through related topics and offering different points of view to different types of users decision trees: help users to make complex decisions by asking them simple question

Be Informed offers a solution for publishing the same information — witt one model set and multiple content sources — to different media, in different formats and for several audiences. One of the disadvantages of the toolset - for international audiences - was that untill now all Be Informed releases were targeted at a Dutch user group, only containing on-line help and user assistance in Dutch. Be Informed hired me to produce a new on-line help system for their product suite, featuring both English and Dutch documentation. With release 3.2.4 the first version of this on-line help - with both function related help and some task related guidance - will be available. The upcoming months a configuration wizard and step by step guidances will be added to the documentation. The international release of Be Informed is scheduled to be launched on the 10th of December 2007. The on-line help will also be released on a website. I will come back to this as soon as it is available and provide you

The Machinery Directive(MD) sets out safety requirements for new machines, assemblies of machines, interchangeable equipment and safety components, which must be met before these products can be traded within the European Economic Area. As of the 29th December 2009 the provisions of the new Machine Directive (2006/42/EC) will be applicable. This new Machine Directive includes some modifications to the essential health and safety requirements. An important aspect within the Machine Directive is the product documentation. Within the new Machine Directive the traceability of documentation becomes more important than ever. Manufacturers must keep the EC declaration of conformity and declaration of incorporation for a period of at least 10 years from the last date of manufacture. The focus will be on the whole lifecycle of products and its documentation, with special emphasis on operational health and safety issues. Documentation specialists now face the challenge of creating documentatio

Yesterday I received the author's proof of my article "How knowledge becomes usable", scheduled for publication in the Winter edition of Communicator, the quarterly journal of the Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators (ISTC). This article is a follow-up on my presentation at the ISTC Conference 2007 in Liverpool, where I explained how you can incorporate knowledge-driven design in information products. The Winter edition of Communicator will be published in December 2007. If you are a member or a subscriber of Communicator, you will received this issue when it is published. Otherwise, if there is something of interest to you, contact the ISTC Office to purchase a copy. The ISTC is the largest UK-based society for professional communicators. If you are a technical communicator and working in the UK - or Europe in general - I can strongly recommend membership of the ISTC. Look for more information on their website: www.istc.org.uk .

In my profession as a technical communicator, there is a huge emphasis on creating information: every new product and every law, policy, rule or process has its own documentation. And, although content management systems help us reuse existing information, the total amount of information is constantly growing. Finding the right information within a reasonable amount of time is becoming more and more challenging for users. Search instruments and navigation trees do not offer a proper solution. As users of search engines like Google and Yahoo now, even the most sophisticated search engines cannot determine what information is relevant to the user and offer long lists of possibilities. On top of this, novice users often lack the necessary information to phrase useful inquiries (Horton, 1994). Navigation trees work fine on small-scale websites but, as soon as the number of topics grows, both the width and the depth of the navigation tree grow tremendously. New semantic technologies enable