Anyone who knows me and has been with this blog for the long haul knows that I really like what m-learning is all about. Even though I haven’t been able to steer my career in that direction as much as I’d like (or at least, not yet), I’ve always been a big advocate for m-learning and what it can accomplish. For a while now, I’ve been a great follower of RJ Jacquez, and while he and I don’t talk as much as we used to online anymore, I still consider him my number one mentor on m-learning. He’s always been a very early supporter of the TechCommGeekMom cause!
RJ recently gave a keynote speech for the 2013 ASTD Houston Conference. While I would have loved to have attended this event, especially for RJ’s keynote address, I wasn’t able to go. (I do have to work, and I went to the 2013 STC Summit, after all!) For that reason, I’m so glad that RJ shared his SlideShare file for the keynote address online.
His talk was called, “The Time to Mobilize Learning is Now!” Here is his SlideShare slideshow:
RJ has been a prominent leader in promoting mobile, not just m-learning, for a while now, and even without his accompanying talk to go along with the slides, you can get a fairly clear idea of where he’s going with this. Mobile is change, and in so many ways, we have already started to embrace the changes. We need to adapt in order to move forward. His demonstration of the evolution of how we have come to the point of using mobile as prolifically as we do now, and of all the many benefits of using mobile seem fairly clear from this slideshow.
I’m still a big believer in mobile, and this slideshow reminded me of this. It helped to reinforce again my belief that mobile is an important part of our integrated technology going forward. If we don’t adapt, we fall behind, not just with m-learning–which seems to be leading the way, but also with mobile content itself.
When I first read the title of John Daigle’s Adobe Day presentation, “Enjoying a Smooth Ride on the Mobile Documentation Highway,” guitar riffs by Steppenwolf echoed in my mind thinking of the song, “Born to Be Wild” and scenes of Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper riding down the information highway. OK, maybe not the information highway, but with mobile, it’s an open road right now that is waiting to be explored.
While I hadn’t heard John speak before, I was familiar with his “rock star” status due to social media–mostly through Twitter (you can find him as @hypertexas)–in my e-learning and m-learning forums. It turns out that John is a big RoboHelp and Captivate expert, so being tied into the mobile highway scene makes sense!
John Daigle
The premise of John’s talk was that there are shifts and trends in mobile, and we need to look at organizations as early adopters, figure out the mobile landscape, and look at how user assistance is used on mobile as compared to how reference documentation is used generally. He pointed out that writing and designing for a mobile audience is very different from traditional methods (I agree!), and that he would be offering some hints on how to approach technical communications for mobile.
John pointed out that fellow speaker, panelist Joe Welinske, created the “bible” for Windows Help, and now has created the “bible” for mobile apps, referring to Joe’s book, Developing User Assistance for Mobile Apps, which talks about the “screen wars” between the smartphones and tablets of various size. These various sizes produce a challenge for technical communicators. John went on to point out that e-readers, such as Kindle and Nook, are still alive and well and doing well as compared to other tablets such as iPads and Samsung Galaxy Tabs. The initial conversion of print text to Kindle ePubs was a big change in electronic documentation. He also stated that at this stage of the game, Windows Surface and Windows Phone are a little late in the game, but they are catching up rapidly.
Following some of the comments of keynote speaker, Charles Corfield (the post on that talk is forthcoming!), John explained that other products including voice-activated devices, such as those found in some cars these days, are becoming more prolific. Google Glass, which is getting a lot of press right now, is a new game changer in mobile devices, and time will tell what kind of impact it will have.
John told us that as of February 2013, there were one billion smartphones and 150 million tablets worldwide–proof that mobile is becoming more widespread! Corporations are even getting more involved in mobile by buying mobile devices for employees, but many companies are also allowing BYOD (Bring Your Own Device). Companies are starting to embrace the idea of BYOD a little more lately.
Finance and healthcare industries are quickly adopting mobile delivery of information because of the portability of the devices. Mobile devices are being used more in industry and shop floors because they allow users access anytime, anywhere. John informed us that many of the same technical communications skills and experiences needed to write standard information apply to mobile. QR codes are gaining popularity as a part of the movement of accessing documentation through mobile. John quoted Jakob Nielsen saying, “Killing time is the killer app of mobile.” With that in mind, John advised that technical communicators should learn to use more economic words for mobile, such as “extra” instead of “additional.”
John also quoted John Caroll, who said, “Minimize the extent to which the systems and the information get in the way of what the user’s really interested in.” Progressive disclosure is key in writing for mobile. It allows one to gain information by revealing what’s needed when it’s needed. Ways to show this in mobile interfaces could be drop-down navigation or overlays. This allows a user to not leave the page, but he or she can still get to information quickly. In this sense, mobile can go right to the source or the heart of information needed.
So the question is, are huge documents (such as what’s in those big company binders) going mobile too? The answer is that technical writers can’t just dump desktop layouts and information onto mobile. This is where technical communicators need to work with developers to do what they do best–help “champion the end users.”
Going mobile is about flattening navigation–but not going button crazy, and getting back to context sensitive help. Technical communicators need to tap into social media to keep content current and accurate, thus becoming curators of user generated content.
It helps to prototype mobile layouts with rapid wire-framing tools, like Balsamic Mock-ups as a popular example. There are many specific tools on the market that are available to assist the developer in facilitate context-sensitive help.
However, there are several design controversies involving the need to upgrade browsers, progressive enhancement, adaptive design and responsive design. Some argue that responsive design is not the best because it makes a device’s CPU works harder, thus it becomes a virtual memory hog when resizing images as needed. Yet, responsive web design can adapt layouts to the appropriate viewing environment with fluid, proportion-based grids.
John suggested using the site, http://HTML5test.com , to help test how compatible your site is with mobile interfaces. He also pointed out that help-authoring tools can do much of the work with single source layout concepts, as different settings in authoring tools can help determine how to make user outputs work properly. Another such tool he recommended was Adobe Edge, as it helps writers to preview and inspect web designs on mobile devices directly ON the devices. For additional tools and information, John pointed us to his website, http://www.showmethedemo.com .
I particularly enjoyed John’s talk, as I’ve been following many of his posts on Twitter for more than a year now. He’s very good at explaining the power of mobile in technical communication, and I think John put this perspective well into view for the Adobe Day attendees. As many know, I’m a big believer in the power of mobile, and the mind-set for writing for mobile isn’t that difficult if you understand the basics. So, it’s good that Adobe continues to include information about technical communications in the mobile world, as that’s where a lot of change is coming in the future. Adobe made a good choice when asking John Daigle to present information about mobile documentation.
John, if you are reading this, please feel free to add any comments or corrections in the comments! 🙂
[WARNING: this is a long post, but jam-packed with information!]
Every industry has its own rock stars. Those are the people who have lived, spoken, and written about topics in a particular field. The information and perspective they provide are considered out of this world.
As technical communicators, we are fortunate that we have lots of tech comm rock stars among us. There are several events that happen over the course of a year that allow several of those rock stars to come to one place to dazzle us with their brilliance, and we are the better for it.
Among the ultimate organizers for such events is Adobe. For the 2013 STC Summit’s “Adobe Day,” they put together a lineup that would make any tech comm groupie squeal with joy to be able to hear some of the leading minds and pacesetters in technical communications. The best part is that, as always, the events are not product sales pitches, but truly a compilation of thought leadership.
The speakers included headliner Charles Corfield, the inventor and “father” of Framemaker, content strategist Rahel Anne Baillie, online learning educator John Daigle and content strategist Mark Lewis. I’ll be writing more about each of their talks soon.
For this post, I’m going to start with the panel discussion that was at the end of the event first. The panel discussion wrapped up Adobe Day well, and I’m using it first as I think it will to help set the tone for the next blog posts about the event.
Scott Abel, “The Content Wrangler” asks the panel a question.
Scott Abel, “The Content Wrangler,” served as our trusty moderator for the discussion titled, “The Changing Role of Technical Communication Professionals–Looking at the Decade Ahead.” This was a similar theme to the Lavacon Adobe Day, but with a different set of panelists, the attendees were sure to get a different perspective this time around.
L to R: Joe Welinske, Ray Gallon, Sarah O’Keefe, Bernard Aschwanden and Kevin Siegel
Scott started the panel out with the questions, “What do you think will be going on in technical communication in the next 10 years? What are the necessary things for tech comm going forward?”
Kevin Siegel replied first, saying that technical communicators need to learn how to write content so that content can be consumed quickly, as the average attention span of online consumers is about fifteen seconds, and the mobile is the most viable means of getting content out, so think mobile!
Bernard Aschwanden felt that networking was most important going forward. Face-to-face discussions–not social media discussions–with subject matter experts, your audience, and anyone else who is going to consume your content will help you learn what is required for your content. He stressed that ideas and tools are constantly changing, and technical communicators need to be able to adapt. Bernard continued by saying, “No one wants to read what you write.” He emphasized that readers read the output of tech writers because they have to, so tech writers should making information easier to find and easier to read.
Sarah O’Keefe emphasized that the biggest skill gap in technical communication is how content and information is relevant to business. Business needs content because of…why? The most important skills required in Sarah’s eyes bring relevance–like ROI (return on investment)–so technical communicators need to learn how to write business cases for tools and other resources to be able to deliver effective products and outputs.
Ray Gallon agreed with Sarah’s point of view, and also emphasized Bernard’s point about adaptability. Ray stressed that technical communicators have a unique view, so using that special view plus being adaptable will help technical communications go forward. He believes that software is driving content and making decisions, so we must create it on how software creates things today.
The second question that Scott posed asked, “What is the global impact with tech comm?”
Ray responded first by declaring that all technical communicators should have an understanding of at least three languages, as knowing three languages lends to their global credibility. Since I know that localization is a big emphasis these days in technical communications, Ray’s comment made a lot of sense to me.
Joe felt that in ten years, technical communicators will still be the same people, but traditional tech comm documentation will be less relevant, and QA (quality assurance testing) of documentation will be more prevalent. He emphasized that by testing the documentation, it allows us to truly understand what part of content is not being used, and what part really matters. He also agreed with Charles Corfield (more on his talk in a future post) that voice and multi-screen publishing will be important going forward. He stressed that access to multiple devices are needed as you write, especially to test usability and “Google-ability.” He felt that a technical publications department needed at least three smart phones and three tablets for testing content on commonly used mobile devices as emulators don’t work as well. Real devices, including the ones you don’t like, are needed to see how well your content works.
The next question posed was, “Have you had an ‘ah-hah’ moment with things going forward?”
Scott chimed in his own response, saying that he thinks looking at internationalized English is important going forward. He felt that having a controlled vocabulary and other English language standardization will allow content to be created in form of English that machines can understand.
Kevin thinks localization is highly important, backing this claim up with the fact that the most popular article in his company’s weekly newsletter is about localization. He felt that soon enough, we’ll be converting books to other languages more quickly and easily.
Bernard’s “ah-hah” moment was when he realized that people are the key, not products or tools. He felt that typing was dying, and that technology is leap-frogging. He talked about how younger people today commonly connect and communicate without face-to-face person contact, not caring about political correctness and preferring to connect with those who are like-minded. He said, “Teens have few barriers with race, gender or sexual orientation. We must get over our own barriers to address needs of future consumers.” He emphasized that people are needed in order to work collectively, we need to be able to connect effectively with people.
Sarah’s “ah-hah” realization involves the “rise of the machine” and the machine integration of content.
Ray concurred with Sarah, pointing to Google Glass as an example, declaring that Google Glass is the “caveman” version of the next generation of machines that technical communicators with encounter.
Joe’s “ah-hah” was understanding that mobile apps are not interested in being help documentation. Instead, mobile apps involve how to have product integrated in everyday use.
At this point, the floor was opened to attendees who had questions. The first audience question asked if technical communicators need to be the drivers of change and adaptability. Ray answered for the entire panel with a resounding, “YES!”
The next question asked if there was any empirical data to back up the statements made in this panel discussion. Sarah answered that that her responses were derived from the anecdotal data from client requests. Joe said he based his responses on the QA testing done he’s done over time, and stressed knowing one’s audience. Bernard agreed with both these responses.
The last question asked about relevance–is this a PR problem for technical communication, or is this more of a marketing communication issue? Scott piped in that marketing communication is meant to dazzles customers, but technical communication provides the real customer experience, so in essense, tech comm IS marketing! Customer service is central.
Ray felt that content is permeable and will get more so over time. Various departments will disappear due to unified content strategy; things will get blurred and content will get unified, so tech comm will be an integral part of teams.
Bernard reminded us that, “We must get to know the ‘language’ of our audience in order to stay relevant.” Scott reiterated that idea, stating that globalization is going to be really key going forward, which will affect ROI.
Joe had the last word, stressing that how we present what we do is going to make a difference!
As you can see, it was quite the lively conversation, and the ideas presented here were more concentrated on localization, technology and networking with people going forward. It’s amazing to me to hear a different perspective to the similar questions asked at the Lavacon Adobe Day panel just seven months ago! It does prove to me that adaptability and understanding the bottom line of what content is needed, and how to disseminate content with ever-changing technology is key going forward.
Thanks to all the panel participants for your insights! (Also thanks to Maxwell Hoffman, as I used both my notes and his notes on Twitter to recall this panel discussion.)
To any of the panel participants–if I misquoted or mis-paraphrased you, please feel free to comment below to correct me!
So, this was the closing act of our tech comm “Coachella?” Impressive! Stay tuned to learn more about the main acts of this gig!
I think my little blog just grew up a bit. I not only reached the 10,000 all-time hits mark, but even passed it. For a niche blog that’s 13.5 months old, I think that’s pretty amazing! I’m a proud TechCommGeekMom!
Thank you to every person who’s a regular reader, who just popped in once in a while, or who came only once for a visit. 10,000 all-time hits is a lot! Now, I know of blogs that have definitely had more traffic than me, mostly because they are much more hyper-focused on a particular segment of technical communications, like everything you want to know about a particular type of software, everything you want to know about a particular strategy, or else they’ve been around for a long time, so they’ve built up a following after a while. I do not begrudge these people, as they are my inspiration, and in some ways, they have contributed to this blog too through curated content now and then. TechCommGeekMom wants to be like those blogs as it grows up!
I trust that you enjoy what you read, and that you keep coming back for more. I’d like to think that the variety presented here, mixed with my own eccentric flair, brings about a lot of different perspectives of what technical communications is and what it can be. As I’ve said in the past, this blog started out very small, as a grad school project to build a community via social media, and I chose to work on building my tech comm/e-learning/m-learning community. I’m guessing that perhaps–just perhaps–I may have achieved my goal of creating a TechCommGeekMom community, and yet I hope the family will continue to grow. If you have any suggestions or ideas of things you’d like to see here, or if you’d like to contribute a guest post, please let me know!
Many thanks from the bottom of my heart for helping me reach this milestone! This blog is a labor of love, and it has opened so many doors for me, which I hope continue to open! I truly appreciate the support!
[WARNING: this is a long post, but jam-packed with information!]
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