Improving the effectiveness of information

Lessons learned from working on instructional videos For a technical communicator, writing instructions is often still the core business. At least, that is how it was for me. No matter the changes in presentation - printed documentation versus smart documentation - the process of creating the documentation remained for me unchanged over the years. Until recently... This is what my process used to look like: Define the goal, audience, and context Analyze processes and activities Create the overall documentation model Write! Test and improve A line of tutorials At Be Informed I am responsible for Be Free, the community of Be Informed users. We offer the a free version of our semantic toolbox  - the Personal Edition - to users worldwide. To support these users I have developed a line of short tutorials that support users in performing basic tasks like setting up the work environment, start modeling and use domain specific modeling constructions. These instructions are av

For most product manufacturers, delivering adequate documentation is a constant challenge. The increasing complexity of products and the stricter regulations for product documentation often lead to extensive documentation sets with 500+ pages manuals online or in print. The question is: how effective is all this documentation? During the STC Summit 2013 in Atlanta I have demonstrated how you can use semantic technology to create process-driven documentation. The session was well visited and evaluated, resulting in numerous questions on how writers could use this technology immediately in their own situation. For everyone that wasn't able to attend this session in Atlanta - and everyone that did attend it but wants to see it again - the Society for Technical Communication organizes the web seminar "Using semantic technology to create process-driven documentation". The session will be highly interactive, with plenty of opportunities to influence the modeling proc

Technical communication has in my opinion never been limited to writing only. As I wrote before technical communicators can act as usability expert, business modelers and information architects. With the launch of Be Free, the, the worldwide community of Be Informed Personal Edition users, I find my self in a new role: managing the community. To do so, I write, teach and present, constantly adapting my outgoing information and message to the reactions that come from my community. Building up the community For years now I am writing and presenting about using semantic technology in a model-driven environment. This technology offers great advantages opposed to more traditional development methods and it also offers opportunities to create smarter documentation. One of the main obstacles in my story was always that in order to work with this technology, a company would have to invest in a full-blown implementation featuring both the workstation ánd the server side of the software. Wi

In my previous article, I described how I used a Card Method to gather input from my audience for a Smart Documentation solution. My approach for these sessions was: I prepared approximately 20 cards with topics from the current version of the system I invited 18 respondents for a 30 minutes session The sessions consisted of three parts: To start with, I asked every respondent to make five cards for the five topics that they would like to find on the new system. By narrowing it down to five, I encourage them to only write down the most important topics. At the end of this step I asked them to make categories of these five cards, each category forming a column on the table. In the next step I - one by one - gave them the prepared topics and asked the respondent to add them to an existing category or create a new category for it. When all cards were done, we reviewed the categories and made final adjustments In the final step, the respondent wrote down the labels for the categor

Sometimes you need to fall back on the oldest technologies available to get the most out of the latest and greatest. This is also true when developing smart documentation. My current project involves the creation of a smart documentation solution for the Be Informed Business Process Platform (BPP). The documentation solution is targeted at users with various educations levels, different skills and experiences and with various roles in an organization or project. And to make things even more complex: the total set of documentation should at least cover all current versions of the BPP, the business solutions that are used on top of it and the implementation and project management methods used during implementation. Preparation  As mentioned in my white paper about creating smart documentation, the preparation for a smart documentation project - before writing the content - consists of the following steps: Define the goal, audience, and context: Clearly define the context, goals

At the STC Summit 2013 in Atlanta, I demonstrated how we can create smart documentation by using semantic technology. The session was well visited and there were a lot of good questions. During the session I modeled live - together with the audience - on a smart maintenance manual for oil tanks. To me - being from a country where we don't know or use these kind of tanks next to our houses - this felt like the ultimate example, completely relying on the expertise of my audience. The demo The starting point was a very basic procedure, consisting of four main activities: In the first step we determine the situation. We start with a short situation description and then - instead of describing what possible situations there are and linking to the pages - we ask our users about their situation. As it is not relevant for people that don't own an oil tank yet to read the maintenance instructions, the first question we ask is whether or not the reader actually owns an oil tan

There is no doubt that the introduction of semantic technology in documentation, will change the way we create our documentation. Increased product and brand engagement Figure 1. Happier users Smarter documentation will lead to happier users, who reach their goals faster and with less frustration. Documentation that exactly responds to individuals will enhance perception of the product and the brand. Although positive feedback travels less quickly on the social media than negative feedback, it will not only impact the product and brand engagement of current customers but also motivate potential customers to take a serious look at your product. It will also influence your image and reputation as a technical communicator in the market and the value you offer to your contractors or managers. In this perspective technical communication will become a profit center instead of a cost center.   Increased documentation engagement Figure 2. Continuity of work Looking at

A knowledge-based, semantically-modeled process can provide exactly the right result for end users and a powerfully effective tool for working teams in an organization. An additional benefit comes with the semantic solution for documentation: the ability to generate multiple output forms in multiple languages and addressed to different audiences from one set of models and content. User manuals, reference documentation, contextual help, in-context explanations, on-line user-assistance and complete inter- and intranet sites can be generated from one single repository, consisting of the relevant models and references to the content. Generating multiple documentation forms is one step in the process of providing documentation as a service. We can take it even one step further by integrating all these output forms in one smart user assistant. The smart user assistant adapts to events, answers questions, gives advice and assists in completing tasks. The key is computing with knowledge in t

The use of models fits perfectly in the professional approach of creating user documentation: Define the goal, audience, and context: Clearly define the context, goals, and audiences. The design of documentation should be goal-driven—from the user’s point of view. Often, a brown paper or moderation session will help you define these goals and requirements. Involving users in this first step helps them understand the process and gives them an ownership stake in the solution. Create models of the goals, models and other important context factors and discuss them with the involved users. Analyze processes and activities: This is an important step in creating goal-driven documentation and should lead to a model of all relevant processes and activities. Also define the roles of different users within the processes.   Create the overall documentation model: this phase involves creating an overall structure for the product information, as well as linking this product model to the proces

Reaching a smarter form of documentation requires that we start to develop other strategies for displaying knowledge even as we change how we gather and store it. Among the solutions we can offer to accomplish this smarter form of documentation are combinations of non-hierarchical navigation, faceted navigation, decision trees, wizards, and faceted search. But first we have to break our habit of hierarchical structuring all our content in chapters, sections, and subsections. Many web sites, manuals and help systems share this structure: all content elements are sub-themes of an element on the preceding level. Figure 1. Many web sites, manuals and help systems are build up like a book with chapters, paragraphs and sub-paragraphs A hierarchical, structured approach is optimized for the most informed users: the developers and designers who created the product. The path it indicates would be the most direct route to becoming an expert user of the product. But for users who need to

In my previous posts I have focused on the benefits of semantic technology in documentation for end users. Semantic technology also offers a great opportunity to support the documentation creation and revision process. Semantic technology replaces a disconnected, post-hoc documentation routine with a dynamic process that is easily deployed, tested, reviewed and revised. Every relevant stakeholder can be involved in the documentation process, as users and as authors. Smart documentation builds internal engagement for the organization in the same ways that it builds external engagement in the customer base. The modular re-use and incremental revision of documentation will reduce total cost of documentation. Support all parties in the product life cycle Using semantic technology in documentation makes it possible to optimize Product Life Cycle Management: It can support all documentation processes for all parties in the product life cycle. It also enables the re-use of information an

Digital technology has allowed the documentation process to evolve from single document-centric to single source-centric: From creating individual manuals to creating re-usable chunks of information for a series of product and document types through various channels. Figure 1. Documentation evolved from document centric to single source centric Example A manufacturer of agricultural machines needed a complete line of documentation for its new type of harvester. In a document-centric approach, this would mean having one technical writer create the user documentation, another writer create the service manual and a third create the on-line help. In the best case they would copy chapters or paragraphs from one manual to the other. All of these documentation types would need to be reviewed by hand and individually updated when the harvester’s features changed, or new rules for its safe operation were implemented. In a single source environment, multiple writers work on discrete top

As announced on several social media, I will demonstrate how we can use semantic technology to create process-driven documentation at the STC Summit 2013 in Atlanta.  I will do this by live modeling with a semantic tool set. Now I could do this with a predefined demo set, but what's the fun of that? So I would like to invite you to send a delimited instruction - this could be a chapter from one of your manuals - by uploading it to our server. From the uploaded manuals, I will select one or more to be modeled out.  As the models in the semantic environment are instantly executable, we can watch the documentation develop, change the models and review the results in a web browser. Wouldn't it be cool to see your documentation modeled out on the large screen at the STC Summit? When: May 6th, 2:00 pm (EDT) Where:   Hanover FG, Hyatt Regency Atlanta - Track my session Level: Advanced Uploading your file   Go to http://info.beinformed.com/stc13-upload and upload y

Instruction manuals, users guides, and other types of documentation have always been the way manufacturers distributed the how-to information about their products to customers, as well as sales and support staff and other employees. This kind of catch-all, one-size document forces every user to sift through irrelevant information, applying their own context to find solutions to their problems. Even when they are successful, users remember the experience as painful and tedious. What if you could take each individual user by the hand and guide them through the product, showing only what is relevant in their situation, immediately answering their questions and helping them make decisions and choices? Seamlessly effective, customized support would improve the user’s experience of the product and help them to feel engaged by the product and its brand. Product and brand engagement Product and brand engagement is – a partly emotional, partly rational – process of forming an attachment

When I introduced my topic "Using semantic technology to create process-driven documentation" in the technical communicators group, I received some feedback referring to semantic tagging. While semantic technology offers us great possibilities to make our information accessible, it can easily lead to maintenance problems when not handled in the proper way. Using RDF, RDF Schema, XML or other specialized meta-data languages, it is – for someone who knows and understands these languages - relatively easy to set up a system that can lead to the desired situation. And as long as the meta-data is used in a consistent way, everything seems to work out fine. But as departments and teams change, the repository of used taxonomies and tags may become unavailable. When the organization rolls out new products, or changes its mission, new content may render today’s schema a relic. Example: eRDF mark-up for a decision about an upgrade Using any form of code or specialized me

For most product manufacturers, delivering adequate documentation is a constant challenge. The increasing complexity of products and the stricter regulations for product documentation often lead to extensive documentation sets with 500+ pages manuals on-line or in print. The question is: how effective is all this documentation? Smart, user-centric documentation Users can be overwhelmed by long, jargon-loaded user manuals, and frustrated by a lack of clear answers. When customers don’t find a solution, blame inevitably falls on the product and the company. Bad documentation - incomplete, unclear, out of date - creates a negative engagement with products and brands. Figure 1. Smarter documentation asks users what they need to know Smart documentation leads users to success and satisfaction. These are the users who share their positive experience with family and friends, and convince them to become customers in turn. Using semantic technology, we can create the smart document