Comments on: Does designing content for scanning devalue the content?

By: How do you curate content? | just write click

How do you curate content? | just write click — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 05:51:47 +0000

[...] – your online user assistance system. If your job is to go through community content and even create a Google Custom Search Engine for certain communities or blogs or wikis, you might be a content curator. You are building a collection that others can wander through at [...]

By: Does designing content for scanning devalue the content? | Adobe Tutorials

Does designing content for scanning devalue the content? | Adobe Tutorials — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 23:32:34 +0000

[...] I just read a great post by Rajesh Setty on the Lateral Action blog called 9 Ways People Respond to Your Content Online . Maybe it’s because I’m in the final countdown before my book is permanently affixed to the pulp of dead trees, or maybe it’s because I’m looking at online user assistance tools to see how they can enable conversational documentation, but it struck me that user assistance gets stuck in that first low value category often. Here’s the excellent visual that shows how return on More here: Does designing content for scanning devalue the content? [...]

By: annegentle

annegentle — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 12:06:59 +0000

Oh, good point Will. And I love the term bidirectional UA! Can I work that into my book? Tee hee indeed. I’ve been thinking about the implementation itself lately, with regard to “how do I get comments on the help system like Adobe’s?” Apparently they used Jive software. I’m also looking at JS-Kit thanks to your note about it when reviewing my book!

By: annegentle

annegentle — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 12:02:20 +0000

Bruce, great observation. I wonder if we’ll have “share on Wave” just like “share” on Facebook, digg, delicious, and so on, but the idea of “save” to the cloud is more like sharing with the cloud. The reader experience may change quite a bit in the next few years. Thanks for stopping by! I just read an SMR of yours a few days ago.

By: Bruce Wilson

Bruce Wilson — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 04:23:35 +0000

I can’t help but wonder how Google Wave will affect this. If every piece of content (help or otherwise) was a Wave, the differences between “save” and “subscribe” are nearly imperceptible.

If Wave (or something better!) becomes reality, I would say my answer is “yes”: technical writers and all kinds of writers will move content to other more fluid forms of publication — forms which do not inherently limit or dictate the kinds of interaction which can take place between author and reader.

By: Will Sansbury

Will Sansbury — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 04:12:37 +0000

One other note: I think what you’re recognizing here may, at least in the short term, mean technical communicators need to cultivate stronger tech skills so that they can implement ways to share, subscribe, supplement in the outputs of existing HATs.

Similarly, this ups the value of HATs that give you direct code-level control of publishing templates.

By: Will Sansbury

Will Sansbury — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 04:07:45 +0000

Hmm, interesting thoughts, Anne. Puzzling over the subscribe piece, though. The context of use of UA versus blog content makes me question the value of subscribing. Does anyone really want new help topics showing up in Google Reader?

Probably not. But if the boundaries of UA are pushed out of the expository and allowed to explore narrative, it might make sense. (And probably be more effective, says my gut.)

I’d push one level deeper on the napkin, though. No. 10, Supplement. A great book I read recently (teehee!) made a strong case for bidirectional UA, UA as conversation, which requires an acceptance and inclusion of the reader’s voice.