Mary Connor's blog

Webinar notes: Delivering Customized Technical Content

Mary Connor — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 13:25:25 -0400

A webinar given jointly by MarkLogic, Aberdeen Group (research), and empolis summarized where the industry stands on the move toward offering users dynamic technical content -- dynamic in the sense of filtered for their needs and assembled into useful printables. The dimensions for filtering are the usual suspects: user skill/type, context (such as a specific product), and task type (setup vs. operation vs. troubleshooting). Aberdeen's research on current industry practices (albeit focused on the needs of manufacturers) showed they are being driven by these factors (most to least): speed to market, market segmentation, customizability, precision (need to cut irrelevant doc), and globalization (localization needs). Those organizations found to be "best in class" are pursuing these types of initiatives:

STC2008 notes: Surviving agile as a floating writer

Mary Connor — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 17:52:04 -0400

This STC 2008 session shared the processes and tips used by NetIQ writers, who straddle multiple sprints and products.

Terms:

Scrum = agile development approach that emphasizes close communication through daily stand-up meetings.
Scrum master = team member who facilitates scrum meetings, communicates outside the team, and works to solve blocks.
Iteration = 1-4 week stretch during which a full software development cycle occurs; begins with planning and ends with a demo.
Backlog = repository for all requirements and wish list items. (tool to manage tasks = Xplanner)
Capacity = maximum amount of hours a team member can work during one iteration.

No more specs:

STC2008 notes: Writing API documentation

Mary Connor — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 15:40:01 -0400

This STC 2008 session by Daniel Wroblewski of SAP Israel introduced writers to API documentation, and he offered this minimalist approach to structuring it:

Introduction (1 page)

Who needs this
What can I do with this API (main use cases)
How guide is organized

Quick Tutorial (1-2 pages)

“I want to see it working”
How to install or reference

Concepts (2-3 pages, more if needed)
Reference

List of all APIs (e.g., Document! X, Javadocs)
Other lists (syntax, types of windows, packages …)

Common goals of API users:

STC2008 notes: Instructional design for the real world

Mary Connor — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 15:01:28 -0400

This STC 2008 session by Jane Bozarth offered alternatives to the methods taught in academic settings and techniques for persuading stakeholders to reconsider their demands and assumptions. Here are my key take-aways:

Needs analysis on a napkin: assign performance problems to four quadrants, axis "wants to" versus axis "knows how to", low and high:

doesn't want to + doesn't know how to = change job position or fire
doesn't want to + knows how to = motivation issue
wants to + knows how to = remove obstacles (bad process, bad management, etc.)
wants to + doesn't know how to = TRAINING will help here, and nowhere else!

Task analysis on a napkin: to find the critical 20%, draw a set of 4 concentric rings:

Outer ring: call it "Everything about the domain"
Next ring: call it "What we have time to teach"
Next ring: call it "What learners will be able to recall"
Inner ring: call it "What learners will be able to use"
Mark the inner ring as 20% of all possible content, and ask the SME what few things should go in that inner ring.

read more

STC2008 notes: Improving distance education

Mary Connor — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 13:07:29 -0400

This STC 2008 session reported findings of an STC-funded study of distance education and a case study for producing online courses from nothing (no materials or experience). The first study (by Rensselaer Polytechnic and New York Life) offered concrete tips for improving distance learning:

Tag team: Use a course host/MC for every class, to set up, manage chat channels, direct group exercises, and record/archive, offloading the instructor.
Plan for pain: Expect a third of the problems to be technical (media technology) and another third to be poor use of interactive channels.
Control eyeballs: Best results come from 100% participation, by preventing/discouraging multi-tasking.
Be fair: Use round-robin technique to ensure onsite and remote participants are equally involved (fear also heightens attention).
Use the best: Use media in this order of effectiveness (ease and reliability): conference call (best), video conference, chat, whiteboard.
Avoid all-in-1: Tools that bundle teleconferencing with video and more prove unreliable; move voice to Skype or similar, and push video to YouTube or similar services.
Peer power: Seek technology that makes it easy for learners to help each other and interact -- it's effective and they want it.

The case study shows how Credence System jumped into remote learning, to meet customer demands for training when and where they need it. They tackled it with risk-management in the driver's seat:

Moving agile processes electronic and virtual

Mary Connor — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 17:06:34 -0400

Mike Wethington posted Martin Fowler's article on lessons learned in doing agile with overseas teams. Many of the points struck me as relevant for the problem of telecommuting teams as well:

Bring distributed developers onsite for critical first iterations of new projects, to get going
Expect to need more documents than with a collocated team: it's the price of being virtual
Extend conference calls with video, especially for project background lectures
Extend instant messaging to group-based messaging, such as with Campfire

Role of Open Source in public sector

Mary Connor — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 10:52:47 -0400

Our family made a road trip to west Texas for the Open Source Symposium, held on Saturday April 26 at Angelo State University, in San Angelo. Its mission is to introduce open source to those working in college environments, which was why UT Austin was pleased to have my husband, Adam attend and report back to them. STC Austin's own Janet Swisher presented on how to participate in OS projects.

STC program: UX futures = Joy of Use

Mary Connor — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 11:09:32 -0400

Last night at the STC Austin program, Dr. John Morkes (of Expero, which hosts Free Usability Advice) argued that the next stage in User Experience would be "Joy of Use", which follows [1] Usefulness and [2] Ease of Use. That is, the emotions experienced by use of software or sites become the powerful differentiator among otherwise comparable offerings. Reminding me of Maslo's hierarchy of needs, Morkes ranked UX needs like this, from "must have" to "nice to have":

useful > easy to use > code quality > trust/security > pretty > stimulating > fun

(Me, I'd tweak it a bit: useful > code quality > trust/security > easy to use > pretty > stimulating > fun)

Research: Studies in psychology, marketing, and education clearly nail the benefits of humor, for improving likeability, social glue, trust, cooperation, sociability, and lowering fear and stress. Adding humor did not cost extra time in the completion of tasks. MRI studies of the effects of humor show that it activates the brain's reward centers, exactly as occurs when we see a pretty face, receive money, or take drugs.

YouTube for NFPs: UNC Chapel Hill channel for lectures/talks

Mary Connor — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 12:07:41 -0400

YouTube is massing and hosting far more educational content than how-tos and demos. The University of North Carolina Chapel Hill now has a dedicated portal for lectures, talks, and interviews: http://www.youtube.com/uncchapelhill.

Videos range from professors giving intimate talks, prominent speakers presenting large lectures, and interviews that probe scholars’ research and teaching. UNC's recordings and some simple metadata are uploaded to YouTube and appear on the UNC “channel.” The volume is impressive: There are now more than 250 videos in different playlists on the UNC channel. I read in a press release (posted to the ASIS list, http://mail.asis.org/mailman/listinfo/asis-l) that the UNC/YouTube relationship proved so successful that channel management is transitioning to the Dept. of University Relations, although colleges will continue to add lectures. The interesting twist to me is the University's generosity with this content: the videos are free and available for use classrooms, home-schooling, research, and more, and the school encourages use and reuse of the materials. Times are a-changing!

SXSWi: Microsoft's Silverlight

Mary Connor — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 13:02:28 -0400

My first experience of Silverlight was pulse.sxsw.com, which covered everything going on at SXSW. Pulse offers a media wall of photos and video, where (reportedly) the smaller 1×1 blocks are flickr images, the 2×2 blocks are user-uploaded photos or video, and the larger blocks are official SXSW content. Microsoft attended SXSW Interactive in force, to push its Silverlight technology (what's with the logo that looks like crumpled contact lenses?). From what I gather, it's not only a direct challenge to Adobe Flash (they've unbundled the Flash plug-in from IE7) but also a bid to become the new platform for rich Internet applications, in combination with their Live services (APIs for search, Virtual Earth, messaging, plus other resources). Silverlight streams huge and high-def media files, and Microsoft will host Silverlight media files and applications (for a fee). Where Flash apps were notoriously opaque to search engines, Silverlight apps travel as text-based markup (XAML) that's Google-able, with no extra work by developers (as Flash requires). Silverlight also offers eye candy: it can reskin the user interface of a browser while the app is running, which can make it look more like desktop software. If they can get the performance up -- oh, my!

SXSWi: Non-profits on the bleeding edge

Mary Connor — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 20:14:58 -0400

Anne Gentle and I attended two popular panels devoted to the challenges facing non-profits, and there was urgent talk about how to increase this to a distinct track in future conferences. The attendees seemed evenly split between those working in non-profits and those providing technology and support to those organizations.

The Future of Volunteers: Adapt or Die!

The first panel tackled how non-profits must harness the new social web to attract and maintain volunteers and donors. From accepting inspiring user-generated content to high-tech recruiting technology in the classroom, these non-profits shared how they're adapting to today's volunteers and donors.

SXSWi: Age of Engage, how our websites must change

Mary Connor — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 20:13:23 -0400

The Age of Engage: Reinventing Marketing for Today's Connected, Collaborative, and Hyperinteractive Culture, by Denise Shiffman

Marketing is hugely impacted by how the web landscape has changed: the static web has become a real-time, interactive web that's social and user-powered. Marketers must distribute messages but then let go, allowing others to manipulate, add to, and pass them along. To engage, we must fundamentally change our messaging: it's more than merely adding blogs, podcasts, and social networking. Age of Engage covers both marketing and product planning.

Advice from her presentation:

SXSWi: Facebook's technology future

Mary Connor — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 20:10:59 -0400

Sarah Lacy interviewed Facebook’s young founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, at the keynote on Sunday. Started as a college networking tool, the site (valued at $15 billion!) is now used by over 60 million users of all ages, with over 50% using the site every day. With the new Facebook Platform, the site is transforming into a new entity, one in which third-party developers will create a torrent of applications and utilities to serve their own communities and advance their own agendas (such as the Brooklyn Museum's app that lets patrons showcase its art collection on their pages). Facebook's goal is to support super-efficient communication and connection, with semi-public/semi-private information that members post in trust; key in the strategy churn now is how best to monetize it, particularly when their 3-year contract with Microsoft expires.

Simplified Technical English: Who needs it?

Mary Connor — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 13:42:12 -0500

Last night I attended the STC Austin program "Four Candles - Just What is Simplified Technical English?", presented by Alan Porter of Quadralay and the 4J's Group. (Do watch the Four Candles video if you don't know this famous skit!)

Simplified Technical English is a writing standard created for aerospace/defense maintenance documentation, born of a deadly need for clarity (such as the worker who obediently "cut the power" with loppers and died). It's a controlled language because it restricts grammar, style, and vocabulary. Its goal is to stamp out ambiguity (one word = one meaning) and present technical complexity in the easiest language possible, to support users of diverse ages, abilities, and familiarity with English. If this sounds like the Plain Language movement to you, you're right: there's significant overlap. Boiling it down, Simplified Technical English has two parts:

Program notes: Accessibility, Bottlenecks, and Control

Mary Connor — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 16:16:36 -0500

Last night, Dr. Clay Spinuzzi, Director of UT's Computer Writing and Research Lab, entertained STC Austin with tales of the journey by which they brought CWRL's website out of the 20th century. The site, a knowledge repository holding decades worth of white papers and instructional content, was bottlenecked, unmaintainable, and inaccessible. What to do?

e-book trend: New "Short Cut" series from O'Reilly

Mary Connor — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 11:03:46 -0500

O'Reilly has a new book series, "Short Cuts", that is ONLY being sold in electronic form: "Whether it's a first look at a brand new technology, a quick reference, or a thorough explanation of a narrow but crucial subject, Short Cuts bring you focused information in an easy-to-use, portable package." Interestingly, this is the same strategy we applied to handling publications on the iMIS Helpsite (docs.imis.com): the User Guides are available as bound publications as before, but the narrow, topic-specific References are posted for download only, for online use, portability, and personal printing. Where we differ is that ours are free distributions, and we post in an editable format, to support site-specific modification.

"Head First": Revolution in instructional authoring

Mary Connor — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 22:57:10 -0500

By revisiting the work of Kathy Sierra, of Creating Passionate Users fame, I followed the breadcrumb trail to the new O'Reilly book series she helped to shape: Head First. The Head First Labs blog reveals some of the research and approach employed in these "brain-friendly guides"; I'll try to summarize their strategy as it's presented in the book I purchased, Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML.

Web 2.0 in Plain English: great quick training

Mary Connor — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 13:00:36 -0400

These wonderful, fun explanations of Web 2.0 Tools are also great models of efficient training:

RSS in Plain English: http://www.commoncraft.com/rss_plain_english
Wikis in Plain English: http://www.commoncraft.com/video-wikis-plain-english

Nov. 6: Social Media workshop at Dell

Mary Connor — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 09:12:35 -0400

Early registration ends today for "Starting the Conversation with Customers", a day-long workshop at Dell, Nov. 6, 2007.

Even if you can't go, http://www.socialmediaworkshop.com/ has some great slideshows giving overviews of social media issues and implications.

"Come join our Austin Workshop Team, Dell's Digital Strategy Team, and other social media champions to learn everything you need to know about how to Start Conversations with Customers. In this day-long workshop, you will learn how social media can propel your business to the next level and build stronger relationships with the markets you serve. Whatever your industry, if you are striving to launch a social media program and have real conversations with your customers, this workshop will prepare you for the journey ahead. If you have already embarked on the journey but need to get to the heart of what matters, this workshop will illuminate your path."

STC program: Exploring and Implementing Embedded Help

Mary Connor — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 12:14:33 -0400

On October 2, Shannon and I attended the STC Austin presentation on Embedded Help by Paul Mueller, President of UserAid ("Delivering information when and where users need it").

Embedded Help systems seek this ideal: to answer users' questions without requiring them to ever ask for help, by making information available exactly when and where they need it. Users get the support they need without leaving the task they are working on. This presentation reviewed UI and technological strategies for embedding user assistance in both web and non-web user interfaces.