There’s usability, accessibility, and readability that we’re all well aware of. I’d like to toss in one more to the mix: adaptability. By this I mean the ability to change docs on the fly to accommodate real-time actions in social media or due to user-generated content that needs to be addressed rather quickly.
How adaptable are [...]
Your Docs: Thought About Adaptability?
July 7, 2010 By 1 Comment
The Magic of Touchscreens and HTML5
May 26, 2010 By 1 Comment
This grabbed me yesterday. The info I want to discuss is longer than a tweet, shorter than a regular blog post, but I just have to get this out until I can start testing it. So – here’s an interim thought. Just can’t drop everything to think about this at the moment. If nothing else, be [...]
(1-Yr Archive) New Writing Methodologies
May 21, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Tech writing is changing, has changed, and the old ways won’t work any longer. Many of my posts over the past year address those considerations. Here they are.
Writing Styles
Smaller screens. Smaller devices. Smaller word counts, don’t you think?
Think Mobile When You Write
Cut, Cut, Cut Your Content and Procedures
Video and Touchscreens
Well, keyboards and Flash are perhaps [...]
Think Outside the Computer: Touchscreens, HTML5, & Flash
May 5, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Touchscreens are here to stay. Computers as we know them are gone already. Really. It’s time to fast-track the planning for delivering docs and content to these types of devices.
Forget a laptop or netbook. I have a computer I can fit in a pocket. That would be my iPhone. I look at it as a [...]
Minimal Procedure Content: Reasoning
November 13, 2009 By 2 Comments
The procedure I wrote about creating a Twitter list uses abbreviated content. This post describes the reasoning behind and decisions made in writing the topic.
Title
Instead of using this:
Create a Twitter List
I opt for this construction:
Twitter List: Create
Reasons
It puts the topic first. You don’t have to dig through the content to get to [...]
Wikipedia to Add Editable Video Functionality
June 23, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Game over. Print is on its way out. I just read an article about Wikipedia adding video functionality down the road that will enable people to edit videos.
I’ve been figuring that video is key, and that people would take some video already made, come up with their own version, and post it somewhere. I’ve seen [...]
Use of Flexible Screens in Documentation
June 8, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Lately, I’ve come across two articles about flexible screens. One is for small touch screens, the other is about video.
What’s particularly interesting about the video flexible screens is that the article in Technology Review states that there is a possibility that such screens could be “worn on wrists, and plastered on clothes.” Now imagine this [...]
A New Doc Strategy
March 31, 2009 By Leave a Comment
In years past, a doc strategy was fairly straightforward: prepare print documents that were either in binders or printed into a book. Then came online help, so both were used. Then PDF was added as an option. For many, that’s as far as capabilities have progressed.
The new reality is that technology is rapidly changing and [...]
In With the New: Video
October 23, 2008 By Leave a Comment
“Everything is on YouTube.”
So stated my son the other day, in response to a comment about looking to see if something might be there. I’d have to agree with him. Every time I look for something there, I’m surprised. The fact that younger kids think of YouTube as a primary source of information also gives [...]