Random burblings since 1999
Camera, check. iPod, check. Books, check.
Ohhh! Clothes.. check (kinda).
Ummm… toiletries, check.
Ehh… passport, check. Cash, check.
Right.
We’re off to Hungary. Back on Sunday.
Ohh don’t worry, there’ll be a couple of posts along soon to keep you occupied.
Viszontlátásra!
I spent most of the weekend laying, re-laying, cutting and swearing at laminate flooring. I read the provided instructions, measured twice (hell, four or five times in most cases) but still it proved problematic. I re-read the instructions, googled a little and then, after some experimentation finally figured out what the problem was… me.
Well not just me, but my interpretation of the instructions which were a little vague in one key area. Namely, where to start. This is crucial as, most laminate flooring needs to be laid the correct way to make it possible to snap all the pieces into place. It’s a one-directional jigsaw puzzle, if you will.
The details here aren’t important, but what it taught me (for the umpteenth time I guess) is that documentation needs to be complete, unambiguous and for hardware related matters at least, a picture tells a thousand stories.
I keep going back to the assumed knowledge angle, and it rings true for this example. One of the forums I found during a frantic Googling session yielded a comment along the lines of: “The professionals know this but it’s not something you’ll find in the instructions”.
I have been guilty of this in the past. Presumption is the silent virus that can kill an otherwise excellent piece of documentation stone dead. All it takes is one presumption to render an entire document AND THE PRODUCT IT IS SUPPORTING, next to useless (or at the very least “problematic”). Introducing that kind of negative thinking at an early stage of the product lifecycle makes it very hard to undo.
Although that, itself, is a presumption. I’m presuming that most people only read the documentation when they are still novice users. So maybe that is another presumption that I need to work on removing.
Laminate flooring is a bugger (or maybe it’s the instructions?). But, finally, it’s done!!
Well, technically speaking there are a couple of small jobs to do but that’s the big stuff out of the way. You should’ve seen us when we laid that last bit of flooring, high-fiving like a couple of NBA All-Stars we were.
Anyway, nothing else to say about it, just wanted to mark the occasion.
Blimey, another week has flown past and, as ever a few things have caught my eye.
9 ways to gather user feedback
It’s often a struggle to get true user feedback on your documentation, Craig Haiss offers some suggestions to improve things in this area. Whilst I’ve tried some of these, and had heard of them all, it’s worth a look to jog the memory:
You can write the most detailed instructions in the world, but if they aren’t the instructions users actually want, you’re wasting your time. That said, how do you go about gathering feedback to flesh out your documentation?
Tech Comm Job to Job Title: Something Lost in Transit?
Ben Minson is musing on job titles and, as well as raising a giggle, ends up stuck. Job titles, as a way to convey what you do for a living, are important.
… the dictionary says one who documents is a “documentalist”—however, I’m reluctant to adopt a job title that includes the word “mental.” So this is where you get “documentation specialist.” The same goes for “usability specialist.”
It seems a little funny that, being writers at heart and therefore professional manipulators of language, some of the terms we pick for our field don’t easily translate into job titles.
I’m currently experimenting with the title “Technical Information Manager” which is a little OTT but seems to fit my current role, thankfully my company, like myself, isn’t hung up on formal job titles (they prefer that you, you know, get on with whatever needs done). So, what’s your job title?
Glossary of DITA terms
Bob Doyle is wondering if there should be a central, user-maintained, glossary of DITA terminology:
many DITA-related terms are not defined … They are simply assumed.
And some is insider jargon, like reltable for Relationship Table.
And there is no convenient alphabetical listing.
You can search for terms on the DITA Infocenter, but then you have to already know the term.
This got me thinking. If you have been toying with setting up a documentation Wiki, then this may be an excellent place to start. It might also throw up some interesting usage of terminology. Definitely something I’m going to have a stab at (well, I’ll add it to the list of things to try).
RoboHelp vs Flare
Interesting round up of posts and comments on this topic. If you use, or are planning to use, either product, give it a look.
And I’m done. Another week in the wonderful world of Technical Communications has gone, I wonder what next week will bring?
Looks like a day of constant drizzle ahead so I’m stuck indoors. Louise is away out to do some shopping and catchup with a friend over lunch and freshly brewed coffee is currently gurgling away in the kitchen.
Tasks for the weekend are to finish the flooring in the kitchen. We failed last weekend as the starting point, cutting back the flooring in the hall, took much longer than we thought (lifting a few boards of laminate, against the lay pattern, is bloody hard!).
I’m also toying with installing Ubuntu on my old PC, and if I still have time I WILL make a start on organising my books.
But, of course, that doesn’t account for any distractions. The internet being an obvious one with the ubiquitous “I’ll only be 5 minutes, I’m just checking my email” swiftly becoming an hour spent surfing completely random websites (all of which are fascinating, of course). My current problem is, as I mentioned the other day, that as I’m trying to figure out how to best to get an online community up and running, I’m spending a fair amount of time researching ideas, trying technologies and so on.
It’s worse when I’m at work. Just when I’m getting my head around something another distraction appears. Of course, most workplaces are full of distractions, especially with the way we do things at my current place which relies heavily on conversation as a way to share information.
Although I do have to confess that I quite like being distracted. Naturally some distractions are more welcome than others and, if I’m very honest, I do occasionally seek out distractions. Sometimes it’s to avoid that task that I don’t want to do, but sometimes it’s a a means to an end, a way to refocus.
As an avid “lifehacker'” (Lifehacker.com, 43 folders etc), there are some techniques which I follow, but none to which I avidly subscribe. I have an almost zero inbox, I do break large tasks down into smaller ones and so on and so forth. Removing distractions is a common method to be more productive, allowing you to get into the ‘zone’ (allegedly), but I find those self same distractions can kick start the creative juices and… well you get the idea.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that I welcome and seek out distractions knowing full well that I’ll reap the benefits later.
Now, where’s the remote?
Have you heard of the TED conference? (TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design)
No? It’s been going a while now, and got started back in 1984
…out of the observation by Richard Saul Wurman of a powerful convergence between Technology, Entertainment and Design. The first TED included demos of the newly released Macintosh computer and Sony compact disc, while mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot demonstrated how to map coastlines with his newly discovered fractals and AI guru Marvin Minsky outlined his powerful new model of the mind.
As well as the conference they share some of the sessions on the internet (freely under Creative Commons license). The quality of these sessions remains high with some of the brightest minds of current times talking about some mind-blowing things and I remain constantly fascinated by the crossover of ideas from one distinct stream of thought to another.
Personally the TED sessions have prompted me to buy several books and dig deeper into some of the topics, I’ve learned a lot.
So, when Adrian McEwen said he’d pulled together a downloadable taster pack of some of the best bits, and was looking for a little help with some bandwidth, I figured it would be good to give something back. Included in the torrent file he’s put together (which will nicely fit on a DVD once you’ve downloaded it), are:
So, don’t just sit there, fire up your Torrent application of choice (I prefer uTorrent) and GRAB IT WHILE YOU CAN.