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."

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.

I attended the e-learning SIG program for ASTD Austin last night, hosted by National Instruments and led by 360training. Working through all of the new social networking technologies that affect training, we only tackled half the list, so we're continuing next month! The biggest surprise to me was the power these technologies could bring for product marketing, beyond their great usefulness for training. Here are my ideas, based on what I heard:

Too good not to share: Free Usability Advice, from our friends at Expero. (See my prior blog entry.)

It's intended to provide short, general answers to broad topics about user-centered design. (They're considering adding a separate section to handle the non-usability questions, which do, of course, get submitted. Should be fun!)

This week several of us in InfoDev attended a 2-day seminar on Web Content Usability, taught by Expero, a local usability firm. Lots to say about that, but I'll start with the end, where we asked for and received a quick evaluation of usability issues with our new Helpsite. Here's what we got, in the order they were brainstormed:

Presenters: Ted Sienknecht, Marcia Kerchner

Concept: We're overlooking a wealth of usability-related data we have on hand!

Where to gather information?

. Lessons learned: Study system usage statistics and user feedback from current/prior releases for possible improvements and functionality
. Software evaluations: Study other software users currently use for implementations they expect or understand
. Field observations: Watch users while they perform relevant tasks and note process, actions, systems, problems, needs, etc.
. Interviews & Focus groups: Use structured inquiry with users about their opinions and experiences
. Task analysis: Investigate typical tasks users perform on the system
. User profiles: Create representative identities for user subgroups (personas)
. Help desk logs: Read help requests for areas for improvement or new functionality

Presenters: Janice (Ginny) Redish, Whitney Quesenbery

Usable content lets users:

[1] Find what they need.

People find what they need when
. links use words they know
. content on information pages is in small pieces with good headings

[2] Understand what they find

People understand information when the content speaks directly to them with
. personal pronouns
. action verbs
. active voice
. words they know

Presenters: Daniel Schwartz, Arin Bhowmick; Oracle

Summary of their experience:

• Specific use case design pattern set = domain abstraction
• Valuable for organizations of any size
• Documentation demands _large_ time commitment!
• Need to create balance, when to reference existing patterns vs. build new
• Critical: properly scope what are pattern vs. product features
• Critical: efficient post-design strategy (just as key as optimal design)
• Design pattern success = documenting best practices for domain + being actually implemented org-wide

Presenters: Laura Mason, Ecora; Gregg Almquist, Experient Interactive and Design

Without Style Guidelines (“The Frankenstein effect”)

. Product was fragmented – page design and language seemed pieced together
. Inconsistency made product harder to use and undermined users’ confidence
. Most important information wasn’t always first on page
. Various synonyms used for the word “enter”
. Tone bounced around from formal legalese to very casual

Presenters: J. Goldberg, Oracle; J. Helfman, Oracle

Recommendations from a usability study of new widescreen page layouts (what users preferred and how they expected such pages to behave):

- Left justify content.
- Make content resize and flow as pages resize.
- Keep page splitters stationary, and let right-side content resize and move in proportion to available page area.
- Have tables always show all columns, unless there's a horizontal scrollbar.
- Make graphs and maps resize with constant aspect ratio, with predefined min/max sizes based on intended tasks.
- Overall: Use a constraint-based liquid layout, rather than redesigning for each display.