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Verizon's anti-documentation commercial

Verizon asks "Why is it that the most impressive technology also comes with an equally impressive set of...instructions?". By which they mean impressively difficult to understand. View the commercial on YouTube.

Posted: November 25, 2012 link to this item, Tweet this item, respond to this item

Hidden in plain sight

Do you provide manuals and other documentation resources that nobody seems to notice? For example, one of the most frustrating parts of the writer's job is to receive feedback that "there isn't a way to print the Help," even when there's a "Print This" link on every single page. (Substitute your favorite existing, but missed, feature here.) Jakob Nielsen's column on Selective Attention might tell you why this happens. Not mentioned, though, is that a key strategy for avoiding the problem is to eliminate as much noise (such as boilerplate and unnecessary navigation) as possible.

Posted: November 11, 2012 link to this item, Tweet this item, respond to this item

Card sorting tools for iOS

Card sorting is handy tool for polling users on how they think about information. Typically it's done using 3 x 5 index cards, but now you can accomplish it on iPad, too. iCardSort is one of the best for user studies as it is a very focused app. But if you're interested in card sorting as a brainstorming or writing tool, check out Index Card, which is also available for iPhone.

Posted: November 4, 2012 link to this item, Tweet this item, respond to this item

A tool for iOS screenshots

Status Magic looks to be a handy tool for fixing up screenshots from iOS devices. It lets you overlay any screenshot with a clean status bar (configured as you choose), or easily strip the status bar completely. It's a $5 utility for Macs, available in the App Store. See Mac Stories for a detailed review.

See also: Frame Your iPhone Screenshots

Posted: October 28, 2012 link to this item, Tweet this item, respond to this item

The Green Man

An interesting article in Slate, The Big Red Word, the Little Green Man, and the International War Over Exit Signs, describes the difficulty in replacing America's "wordy" version of the critical EXIT sign. For technical writers, it's a design and localization challenge on a scale so large that few of us will ever experience.

Posted: October 21, 2012 link to this item, Tweet this item, respond to this item

The disappearing book

A publishing company has released a book with a "read by" date. After the date has passed, the ink begins to fade until the pages are virtually blank. I guess that's one way to get users to RTFM. Or, maybe not.

Posted: October 17, 2012 link to this item, Tweet this item, respond to this item

Interactive paper documents

If you still provide a print-optimized version of your onscreen documents, you'll be interested in the idea behind Inky-Linky. It converts links to QR Codes so they can still be conveniently (well, sort of) accessed.

Posted: October 11, 2012 link to this item, Tweet this item, respond to this item

Telephones and rifles, oh my

The fun Retronaut blog features two interesting examples of instructional design. The first is a series of ads from the mid 1900s that teach telephone technique and etiquette. Including tips about needing to hang up the receiver at the conclusion of a call, and how to politely deal with wrong numbers. (Oh, if only that were followed today.)

Also of note is a 1968 comic book that teaches soldiers how to operate and maintain their M16 rifle. Illustrated by the legendary Will Eisner.

See also Basil Wolverton's Instructional Design and Comic Art and Technical Information.

Posted: September 30, 2012 link to this item, Tweet this item, respond to this item

The gestalt of editing books

What a Valuable Waste, at the Lost Art Press, describes why you'll never find all the typos in your book unless you repeatedly print it out and edit on paper. Yes, it's wasteful, but "paper is magic."

Posted: September 23, 2012 link to this item, Tweet this item, respond to this item

Tracking reader behavior

Hiptype is an interesting new publishing service that promises to give authors an amazing level of insight into how readers use a book. The service is in private beta so it's unclear exactly how it works, but the site promises that it's compatible with existing e-reading software. Sadly, there does seem to be an emphasis on advertising and fictional works, so it's also not clear how well it would apply to technical manuals. But on the surface, it's certainly fun to think about being able to measure readership at this level of detail.

Posted: September 10, 2012 link to this item, Tweet this item, respond to this item

Documentation in the age of social media

Writing Less Is More: Using Social Media to Inspire Concise Writing for the New York Times, Shannon Doyne and Holly Epstein Ojalvo describe how colleges can adapt writing exercises for the Twitter and Facebook generation.

If your entire documentation set were distributed only on Twitter and Facebook, how would you rewrite it?

Posted: August 27, 2012 link to this item, Tweet this item, respond to this item

Those who know, don't blog

James Hague, in The Silent Majority of Experts, observes that the "wisdom of crowds" might be missing the voice of the true experts because they are too busy or not interested in participating. Food for thought when it comes to relying on user-contributed support and documentation.

Posted: August 19, 2012 link to this item, Tweet this item, respond to this item