Photo taken at the Computer History Museum in California by me! Who knew it’d be back in the news?
At the end of my trip attending the Intelligent Content Conference in San Jose, California, I had the opportunity to visit the Computer History Museum in nearby Mountain View with a group of other conference attendees. It was a great little excursion, especially for a geek mom like me. Every kind of computing device in the last 150 years (give or take) was included in this place. I felt particularly old when seeing several of the first computing toys like “Merlin”, “Donkey Kong”, and “Quiz Wiz” displayed (I had one of them, my sister had another, and I wanted the third!) I also saw some of the earliest versions of Apple and PC computers. I remember them as well. My father brought home an Apple II from the school where he was an administrator, and I remember playing some of the earliest versions of Castle Wolfenstein and doing simple computer graphics in BASIC on it. Good times.
Tom Baker as the 4th Doctor on Doctor Who. He later starred in Adams’ “Hyperland” video as the interface.
But one items caught my eye, which was the game shown in the image above. It was the computer game of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” from 1984. My own disclaimer is that I’ve never read the book or played the game, but I’ve watched the movie and enjoyed it. I also know that the author of the book, Douglas Adams, was an occasional writer for Doctor Who for a time, so seeing this computer game picqued my interest. I also remembered that Douglas Adams wrote and created the mini-movie called, “Hyperland”, which starred the former Fourth Doctor, Tom Baker, and talked all about hypertext theory. See my post about it here. If you haven’t watched it, you must take the time to do so, as it still stands the test of time and is well done! It occured to me that Douglas Adams really understood the idea of hypertext when he wrote “Hyperland” due in part to Doctor Who, simply because the entire show is actually all HYPERTEXT. While it seems that we are going forward in a linear way, we are actually pulled back and forth into different times and sequences–much like hypertext. Think Elizabeth I references throughout or that the Doctor can be in several places at once–he may be in Victorian England as one version of himself, while in Victorian England as another version in another part of the country on the same day, for all he knows. Same story of the same man (essentially), but two different directions.
But anyway, I digress. I thought it was really cool to see this old game displayed at the museum, and didn’t think anything more about it until I saw this article come out:
What’s this? Evidently, the BBC is revamping and re-releasing the game as a 30th Anniversary edition. Who knew that an old game written by Douglas Adams, who understood hypertext theory before it was mainstream, would stand the test of time? I’m excited that it’s out, and have played a round already. It’s good fun. Go to the link above for the article, and find the game on the BBC website. It’s a great example of the use of hypertext writing well before people started to understand how to structure content and employ reuse on the Internet. Give it a try. You’ll enjoy it!
Some updates have been made to my Tech Comm Educational Resources list. There are two new additions.
First, there is a new Master’s degree in Social Media–and it’s an online course of study–available through the University of Florida. I’ve checked out the program and talked briefly with a rep for the program, and it sounds like a great program.
The second new addition is a new Master’s degree in Technical Communication from Arizona State University, which already has a great Bachelor’s program. This ASU program is so new that the first class will start in Fall 2014! I’ve looked at the curriculum of this program as well, and it also looks very good.
For more information, look for the Technical Communications Education Resource List on this blog by either clicking on the ID/TC Education Resources tab above, or by clicking here.
If you are interested in Instructional Design educational resources, you can click on the same links for the Instructional Design Education Resource List.
If you know of a related program that I don’t have listed for either category, please let me know, and I’ll be happy to add it to my lists!
While I haven’t been an official content strategist/publisher for that long, I actually have been web publishing for a long time now. Over the years, I’ve learned the difference between good practices and bad practices, from experience and through classes and webinars I’ve taken. I’d like to think that from all of this that I’ve learned to be a pretty good content strategist and web publisher. Even so, I still don’t understand why people find content strategy difficult to understand, and why creating a high standard of quality in content strategy and publishing content that’s user-friendly is so difficult. It makes me want to pull out my hair it frustrates me so much!
A recent occurrence of this lack of comprehension spurred my intense frustration again. I’ve experienced this before in many places that I’ve worked, but this was just the latest occurrence that sparked my ire. Among several projects that I’m working on at work, one of them is managed by another web publisher. In our project, we’ve been assigned to revamp a current internal website. Par for the course–this is what we do. The project manager was given an outline by the internal client, along with the main content, which included documents to be linked within the pages. That sounds fair enough. Of course, as most technical communicators know, content written or planned by non-technical communicators usually needs some help to make it more user-friendly. In this case, much of the formatting of the content was…less than desirable. In addition to making the outward facing part of the microsite user-friendly, we also had to make the back end–the organization in the content management system–user-friendly as well, since the client would be maintaining the site after we were done setting it up. This all sounds like a reasonable task, and a technical communicator would be just the person for the task.
However, I found myself frustrated with the process, or rather, the quality of what was starting to go up. The project manager gave me sections of the website to work on and format. I found it difficult to decipher the client’s outline because the outline was written poorly. Nevermind the actual text itself, which wasn’t always well written either. I couldn’t really touch that. The outline was meant to help the web publishers–the project manager and I–understand how the client wanted the site organized. At a high level, the main outline seemed fine, but when getting into the finer details, it easily fell apart for many sections. I often had to consult the project manager for clarification, as I wasn’t supposed to be talking to the client directly, for some reason. Whatever.
The other problem was that nothing was labelled in a way that made sense or was user-friendly for use on the front or back end. I can understand that people have different naming conventions for files that make sense to themselves. But when creating the name of a file that is some sort of document or form to be used by others, and not giving the document a title? I don’t get that. For example, if the document is a quick reference guide about how to use your Lotus Notes account, then the text on the web page should be something like,
Quick Reference Guide for Lotus Notes
and the file on the back end should be called something like, “QuickRefGuide_LotusNotes.pdf,” or something like that in order for the user to understand what they are downloading. The file shouldn’t be called something like, “QFC-LN_ver1_01.02.14.pdf”. Down the road, someone will look at that downloaded file and question what that file is. Wouldn’t it be easier to title the file more appropriately rather than have to open it? I’m sure some would argue something about versioning here, but in our CMS, there seems to be a bad practice of putting many versions of the same document up with different names rather than utilizing the versioning function of the CMS. I use the versioning function on the CMS extensively on the other sites I work on, so this confuses me that others think it’s okay to clutter up the system with many versions of the same file under different file titles.
To add to the grief, the client sent files in zip files which yielded unorganized folders and files as well. In this instance, the project manager would keep the folder convention the client had given, even when it didn’t make sense. When I questioned the project manager, I received the response of, “The client had them organized that way, so we’ll leave it because they’ll be maintaining it later.” NOO!!! The organization didn’t make sense, it didn’t follow the client’s own outline, and complicated the back end so that it didn’t make sense! I am confident that the client just slapped some folders and files into a zip file, and sent it along for us to decipher it. I spent the past year cleaning out another department’s very large microsite doing just this–giving files more appropriate names and creating a folder system that would make sense to ANYBODY going into the site to find the page or document needed that followed what was on the front end. And now, when changes need to be made, it’s easy to find the appropriate documentation.
As I’d do the pages I was assigned to do for this new microsite, it became clear to me that the project manager didn’t care. Granted, it’s a big project, and we want to get it done quickly. It would be easier to be able to merely cut and paste content into the site and be done, but it’s also our responsibility as content strategists and technical communicators to make things easier, more streamlined, more user friendly for both the front end and back end. The mantra for all technical communication is always user advocacy– for all aspects of the project, whether it be digital or print.
This means that there needs to be attention to details, thus the “copy and paste” method of entering content into a CMS system alone is not enough. I used to be known at one job as the “Table Queen” because the CMS used didn’t like the copy and paste of tables from Word, so I usually had to go into the HTML code and fix everything so it displayed correctly–or if I could, make it display even better. Tables are something simple to figure out in HTML, but even so, it was something that other people at that particular job with the title of “web publisher” did not know. (They didn’t even know HTML at all, so why were they called “web” publishers?) It was important to make the pages look consistent and be organized in a way that would allow the users to find information quickly and easily.
In this project, I’ve found that the project manager isn’t taking the lead in setting the standard for the website. I’ve been disappointed that the same standards that I would expect aren’t being displayed by this person. It frustrates me, but like I said, it’s not the first time I’ve encountered this reluctance to make a website work.
Do understand that I’m not a perfectionist. I let things slide to a certain point, too, and post things that are “good enough”. But in the end, it comes down to the foundation of the website. If the foundation and the building blocks aren’t sound, it’s not going to hold up. In content strategy, if the infrastructure of the site isn’t sound, and the content isn’t well defined, then the website will reflect that disorganization.
Content strategy, at its core, is really easy. It’s all about organizing information in a way that it can be easily searched and retrieved. It’s about labelling files and folders so that they make sense. Val Swisher’s analogy about content strategy being like one’s closet still stands at the heart of it. If you can organize your closet and identify the different clothing pieces in order to categorize them, then you understand how to do content strategy. The only difference is that instead of having shirts, skirts, pants, and shoes to organize, you have folders of documents, webpages, and multimedia. The method of making sure that users can find those documents, webpages, and multimedia should be streamlined, clear, concise, and user-friendly. As content strategists and user advocates, it’s all about making sure that what the audience is viewing looks and reads well, and what the content managers can maintain easily.
Ultimately, when creating a content strategy and setting it up for maintenance, do it correctly now, even if it’s time consuming. If for no other reason, it’ll save time and headaches later. It’s not difficult. It’s just common sense.
The Times Square New Year’s ball drop has landed…it’s a new Adobe Technical Communication Suite!
As of TODAY, Adobe is releasing five new tools for technical communication professionals everywhere! Technical Communication Suite 5.0 (TCS5), FrameMaker 12 (FM12), FrameMaker XML Author 12 (FMXA 12) and RoboHelp 11 (RH11), and FrameMaker Publishing Server 12 (FMPS12) are now available.It’s been about eighteen months or so since the last big Adobe tech comm release, so you can imagine there are some new and enhanced features included.
I was privileged to be among a group of tech comm professionals who were invited to get a preview of the products before their release, and I have to say, there were so many new and improved features that it was difficult to squeeze all the information into one press conference! But I’m going to give you the highlights, and I’m sure you’re going to find that there’s something new for you.
In the last release of TCS, namely TCS4, there were several big overhauls of the product, namely that the Technical Communications Suite concentrated on providing tools that supported structured authoring, integrated interactive content, and could support the creation of content for mobile devices while providing searchable, personalized, socially enabled content in a way that would yield bigger results with less resources. It was a major step to enhance these tools, especially in regards to adding mobile and interactive abilities to content. Adobe has continued to build on those major changes with the new features in version 5.0.
The foundation of the Tech Comm Suite has always been FrameMaker and RoboHelp. With the release of TCS5, FrameMaker 12 and RoboHelp 11 have been released with big enhancements that appear to concentrate on making these tools more user-friendly and efficient for the technical writers using them.
Image courtesy of Adobe.
For FM12, the first obvious enhancement is the interface. Adobe has improved the user interface to include colored icons and larger icons that look cleaner and sharper in HD. If you like things “old school” in the original smaller, monochromatic colors, that choice is still available as well. There is also more flexibility in customizing your interface. A new “pod” allows the user to access all the currently opened files in one place, from which you can save and close multiple files at one time, while still viewing the unsaved files. There are also enhanced abilities to drag-and-drop to empty areas of the interface, close pods or panels more easily, double-click on empty areas to minimize or expand pods, and searching capabilities have been expanded. These seem like minor details, but when using a product as often as many technical writers use FrameMaker, these finer details can make a big difference! FM12 includes three samples of unstructured content and one DITA-based content sample with the product.
FM12 is not all about a new façade. Adobe has enriched the authoring process with new capabilities. The first thing that caught my attention is that FM12 can generate QR codes now! They can be created for URLs, SMS texts, emails, or to initiate phone calls. QR codes are taking over these days, so it’s great that these can be both created and integrated into FM documentation. Background color enhancements allow uniform height background color and options to specify paragraph boxes. The addition of a new customer-requested feature is the support regular expression coding.
Single-sourcing has been a hot topic in the last few years, and this has been addressed with new enhancements. FM12 gives users a new way to work with conditional text, by using a new conditional tag pod which provides check-box mechanisms with multiple conditions to allow the user to do more complex filtering with conditional text enhancements. It truly simplifies the entire process, that even a newbie should be able to figure it out easily.
Productivity enhancements have also been included in FM12. A searchable smart catalog function allows the user to filter choices based on the valid choices available and phrase typed by the user, while the user can continue to use the keyboard shortcuts as before. There is also a new capability to open all files from the user’s last session in one click, including the last documents and pages in focus, workspaces such as pods, panels and palettes, among others.
Adobe has also taken care to add great collaboration enhancements in FrameMaker. Native connections to any webdev content management system (CMS), such as Documentum, SharePoint, and Adobe CQ are available. Users can now view entire CMS tree layouts, and can access several key CMS functions, such as checking out documents, editing documents, and searching within document, all from FM12. PDF review commenting has been made more flexible. The most proactive steps towards subject matter expert (SME) reviews is that reviews can be done on PDF reader apps on mobile devices, and can also be used on those same devices using cloud technology such as Dropbox for both internal and external reviewers. As mobile devices become more commonplace replacing desktops and laptops, this is a great step forward!
Image courtesy of Adobe
Publishing abilities have gotten a boost on FrameMaker as well. It used to be that if you wanted to create certain types of digital output, such a ePUBs, for FrameMaker content, you would have to export it to RoboHelp, and have RoboHelp publish the document. Now, that step is no longer needed for PDFs, Webhelp, ePUBs, Kindle docs, Microsoft HTML Help, responsive HTML5, or Web help! That’s a big deal, as it allows FM12 to be more efficient by skipping that step of exporting and publishing in RoboHelp. Publishing can also be done through the Web now, too, for multiple users using a FrameMaker server, allowing multiple users to publish simultaneously and automatically to multiple channels and devices. That’s a practical efficiency improvement right there!
Image courtesy of Adobe
With this release, Adobe is introducing a new FrameMaker product for those who don’t need the full version of FM12, but are mostly concerned in having a tool to do structured XML authoring. FrameMaker XML Author is a tool that has been created especially for the structured XML market. Those wanting to use unstructured content will still need to use the full FM12 version. The XML Author is fully standards-compliant for content creation, and supports the most popular XML technology for single-sourcing. It is not FM12 “lite”, but it is a streamlined, easy-to-use version that supports structured authoring without the bulk of the FM12 features that aren’t needed for structured content, yet still integrate-able with the full version of FM12 and available at a lower price. I’m sure that having this tool will be highly beneficial to many companies who are looking for a way to cut costs (it is priced at 40% the price of FM12 “full”) while still reaping the benefits of having a powerful XML authoring tool.
Another customer request that has been granted by Adobe is the integration of MathML, to allow MathML equations to be imported, created, edited, and published with FrameMaker. Adobe is even including 30-day trials of MathFlow (MathML editor from Design Science) with the shipment of FM12 for those who are interested in trying it out. There are several other features that are also included, along with 55 bug fixes, improved performance and launch time for FrameMaker, but I’d end up writing a book at this point!
Of course, with all these big changes to FrameMaker, we can’t forget RoboHelp 11, which also has had a big overhaul.
Image courtesy of Adobe
RH11, like FM12, has a new UI look as well. Based on customer feedback, RH11 has a new color scheme and a more modern interface that looks more pleasing to the eye. It’s a step in the right direction. Adobe has said that further UI improvements are in the works, but this current new UI is the first step in a long overdue makeover for the interface.
The more important feature enhancements with this new release of RoboHelp include advances with HTML5 publishing, printed document enhancements, and collaboration and single-sourcing enhancements.
The HTML5 publishing enhancements are from the perspective that mobile publishing is central, so new single responsive layouts for all devices are available “right out of the box” when downloading RH11. This new single layout feature will work seamlessly across all devices, can be easily customized, will allow for real-time previewing based on the browser size, and can be published with one click. There is a new wizard-based layout editor available to help with this process that shows the added responsive HTML5 output options. You can also preview layouts, and the customization is great because no coding in CSS needs to be done, as you can use the editor instead. To me, this is true single-sourcing creation at its best while simplifying the process! This is a big deal!
Printed documents have not been ignored. Users can now customize headers and footers of printed documents by defining them in the master pages. Headers and footers can also be imported from Word. There is also the ability to specify different headers and footers for the cover, and even and odd pages for different sections of a document. This is great for consistency within branded documentation.
In terms of collaboration and single-source improvements, cloud integration and topic sharing for SMEs has now been included. RH11 now includes a Resource Manager tool that synchronizes folders using Dropbox, Google Drive, or Microsoft SkyDrive as shared locations, and includes filtering for specific folders. This allows the user to manage linked resources within files used in real time across projects and geography.
Image courtesy of Adobe
The Technical Communication Suite 5.0 includes FrameMaker 12 and RoboHelp 11, but it also includes the updated products of Acrobat Pro XI, Captivate 7, and Presenter 9 to complete the Suite. You will notice that Illustrator, which was included in the TCS4 version, is not included. This was a step, Adobe said, to help lower the price. Additionally, from the way I see it, it makes sense, because both Illustrator and Photoshop–another product that used to be included in prior TCS versions–are now affordably available as part of the Adobe Creative Cloud subscription. I know that I personally have a CC subscription, and I’m guessing that many active technical communicators do too, so this saves us from spending twice for the same product, which makes a lot of sense. TCS5, FM12, RH11, FM XML Author, and the FMPS12 will also be available both as a subscription and through perpetual license as well. There is separate pricing for the FM XML Author and FM Publishing Server software.
The updates made to FrameMaker and RoboHelp are extensive, as there are many more features, but I think you get the idea. Adobe is taking steps to try to stay on top of technological changes that have taken root in the past couple of years, such as mobile and cloud technology, and is working to continue to make a more robust and user-friendly products for technical communicators.
My recommendation is that if you are looking to try TCS5 or any of the TC products out, or are interested in upgrading your current TCS package or individual products, click on the Adobe advertisement in the upper right corner of this page, or visit Adobe’s TCS product page for more information.
TechCommGeekMom 
You must be logged in to post a comment.