Hyperviews Online

by Marcia Poulsen, member, Central New York chapter and Online SIG

The feedback I’ve received on my presentation, originally posted on this site Aug. 5, has inspired me to revise it. The updated version is entitled “The Three Core Topic Types: Concept, Task, Reference” (PPS, 3 MB).

Thanks to all who contributed thoughts.

This is a presentation made by Ian Koss to the Suncoast Chapter in Tampa, Florida, on August 3, 2006, posted by chapter president Tom Johnson.

Ian Koss is founder of Ink19, which was at one time one of the largest free music magazines in the U.S. His team began publishing in the early 90s in the traditional print medium, but changed to an online format as the Internet emerged. In this 40 minute podcast, Ian explains how the online medium required their writers to rethink and restructure their writing.

Ian talks about such topics as the transience of print versus the permanence of content online, attention spans, online structure and layout, metadata, search engine optimization, semantic markup, single-sourcing and XML, readership anonymity, tracking users, profitability, banner ads, linking, designing for a range, milisecond judgment, the sense of incompleteness, and unpredictability.

The file is 16 megs. I recommend that you download it to your computer by right-clicking the Download link (yes, the small one on the bottom right) and selecting Save Target As. In Firefox, just click the file and download it using the Download Manager.

You can then drag the file into your MP3 player and listen to it wherever you may be — driving, working out, waiting in line or anyplace you choose.

Listen Now:

 Writing for the Online World: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (294)

by Marcia Poulsen, member, CNY chapter and Online SIG

Should writers use gerunds in topic titles, for example, “Balancing the Checkbook”?

There’s been some excellent, thought-provoking discussion on STC’s Online SIG list on this question recently. It’s a question that I’ve wrestled with for a while, not just for online Help but for topic-based writing in any medium. I’ve read everything I could get my hands on about topic-based (modular) writing, I’ve studied examples of online Help, and I’ve debated this question with anyone who’s interested.

Here’s what I’ve found. (more…)

Max Kiesler has assembled comprehensive information on accessible AJAX applications: “How to Make Your AJAX Applications Accessible - 40 Tutorials and Articles.” Karen Mardahl provided this information.

In the August 2006 issue of EContent, Bob Doyle’s article “Community Portals and Plaforms” examines how websites support collaboration in virtual communities through multiple tools integrated by web services. (more…)

On July 30, Online SIG Content Management lead Scot Abel published an article, “10 DITA Lessons Learned From Tech Writers in the Trenches,” based on interviews with technical writers at more than 20 software companies who are using DITA to create documentation at this time. Members report finding the article meets Scot’s promise of “useful advice, practical tips, honest warnings, and lessons learned… straight forward and useful information.”

In July, 2006 a discussion arose on an STC list about whether or not to include a Go button with a dropdown list. In response Whitney Quesenbery pointed out an article originally published in the January, 200s issue of Usability Interface, newsletter of the STC Usability and User Experience community: “Should a Go button be included with a drop down list?” by Vannesa Mosher and Steven Weintraub. The article summarizes a list discussion of the same topic.

The Windows Vista User Experience Guidelines are posted, and include text and tone, and guidelines on writing software messages.

Sun Microsystems has made its GNOME Documentation Style Guide available online, including chapters on basics of information design and writing for international audience

Open Source Software (OSS) refers to any application for which the source code is distributed. A definition is available online.

Many organisations work with both Open Source Software and proprietary commerical software. Open source content management sytems have the advantage of supporting open standards and thus being easier to integrate with other open source and with proprietary systems. The international association for Open Source Content Management has more information.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has “validation pages,” where developers can enter a path, file name, or free text for HTML or CSS to be checked for conformance to the standard. If the code passes validation, the site can display the W3C logo.

Adobe has FAQs that address use Adobe products for technical communication.

Scoop is a content management application used by journalists to produce major newspapers and magazines. The main editing tool is Scoop Edit for print or Scoop Headline for web. All edited material is stored in a central database, on a file server, a SQL server, or both. Scoop eLibrary provides archival searching for old articles. This system is described fully in an article on the Swedish producer’s site.

Scoop is also the name of a blogging application used by many popular sites. This application allows site users to make posts and comments, and has special ranking features to support discussion by a community. Thus topics stay on the main page because they are important to users of the site. There are also categories, created by site administrators, which allow for retrieving posts by topic, and navigational lists of posts made recently or by frequent posters.

W3C Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0 was published on June 27 as a candidate recommendation.

Sun Labs reports researching methods of searching for music by how it sounds, or its acoustic content, They envision a system, “Search Inside the Music.”

Using this technology people would be able to find and organize music based on lyrics, musical theme, melody, tempo, rhythm, and instrumentation. Searching by these characteristics would find music that “sounds like” the music someone has in mind. The intent is to ultimately allow someone to hum a few bars and find a recording in that way. (more…)