Earlier this week, Google announced the launch of the Google Apps Marketplace, promising a one-stop shop for Web-based applications.
Organisations will be able to build their individual suite of Web-based applications that integrate with Google’s own applications (for example, its word-processor and email applications). The idea is that you’ll have “best of breed” applications from a range of suppliers, rather than a suite from just one vendor.
Google are likely to be followed in this field by Microsoft and others. For example, the UK government has initiated the G-Cloud initiative, allowing local and central government departments to share centrally hosted applications.
So will there be a “best of breed” user interface for users, or will it be a messy hodge-pot of different user interface designs? What’s more, how will the user assistance, online Help, be provided across each individual suite?
It appears, in Google’s case, the integration is limited - data and logins will be shared, but there are no rules for how the UI or user assistance is delivered.
1.Verify your product or service utilizes a Google Apps API or Google Apps product
2.Verify your listing and product follows Google’s branding guidelines
3.Verify your listing links to a web site that relates to the product or service in the listing
4.Review the Listing Policy FAQ
Having no policy (over the UI and UA) may not matter. However, it could be the Apps Marketplace’s Achilles’ heel. Perhaps this will provide an opportunity for any enterprising Help Authoring Tool vendors out there.
Below is an interview between Ellis Pratt of Cherryleaf and Ed Dawson of Atlassian about technical documentation and working in an Agile environment. This is a 20 minute edited version of the 45 minute interview. The full interview will form part of Cherryleaf’s Learning Zone.
One way of estimating the number of Technical Authors may be by looking at statistics from the USA. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Outlook Handbook now includes details on technical writers, and it estimates there are 48,900 technical writers employed in the USA.
According to the World Bank, the UK economy is 18.66% the size of the USA ($2.13 Trillion, compared to $14.2 Trillion). So, if we assume the UK and USA economies are comparable, then we can estimate there are (48,900 x 18.66%) 9,100 Technical Authors in the UK.
Alternatively….
The Australian Bureau of Statistics also recognises Technical Authors as a profession (the classification is 212415 “Technical Writer”), and estimates there are 2,115 employed in Australia (Source: Table 1 - ASCO Second Edition to ANZSCO First Edition - Australia). By using the GDP calculation again ($1.02 Trillion, compared to $2.13 Trillion), our estimate becomes 4,416 UK Technical Authors.
So perhaps we can estimate the number being between 4,500 and 9,000.
This is the edited Cherryleaf interview with Briana Wherry, Information Manager of Alfresco. We discussed how user documentation is developed at Alfreso in an Agile environment, using wikis.
At the Documentation Managers peer group meeting we hosted earlier this week, one manager commented his organisation was aiming to increase the average time for each support call. This was because it believed it could eliminate all the short duration calls - through redesigning the software and better user documentation. What would be left would be the more complex problems that take longer to solve.
Having worked on a support line when I left college, I can appreciate the benefits of this approach. There’s nothing worse than spending your time repeating the same solution over and over again. So a consequence may be that they’ll also see a reduction in support staff turnover.
Allied to this approach may also be the adoption of micro-blogging communication channels. Yesterday, Yammer announced it will be launching its Communities feature on 1st March. This means organisations will be able to create their own private network channel to communicate with its customers and partners.
Often, an organisation will sell a system that is packaged with a number of products and services from partner suppliers: a car will include a radio, a telephony system will include handsets, and so on.
In the same way that the system needs to integrate all the various components from different suppliers, creating the user documentation can create a challenge: How do you take existing content from partners and incorporate it in your documentation set?
Using DITA is one way to make this process less of a headache. DITA is an XML schema for writing that builds content reuse into the authoring process. The content is written as modular topics (as opposed to long “book-oriented” files), which means chunks of text can be easily reused for different purposes.
The format aspects of the content (the font size, colour etc) are stored away from the topics themselves, so you can take content from various sources and easily set a uniform “look and feel”.
DITA also allows for conditional text, so product names can changed easily, depending on circumstances.
It may also mean you can re-use chunks translated into different languages, saving you the time and money needed to translate that content yourself.
So if you a wrestling with user content originating from various suppliers, it may be worth taking a serious look at DITA.
One of the most recent trends organisations are starting to look at is creating a “customer experience strategy”. “Customer Experience Management” is management-speak for generating customer advocacy, brand loyalty and an emotional attachment to a product or company.
With so many people describing their experiences as customers via Social Web sites, Blogs and other media, it’s becoming increasingly important to ensure customers have a positive experience when they engage with your organisation.
Shaun Smith of Smith+Co, a specialist in this field, talks about the steps towards customer loyalty as being like a staircase:
Another player in this field, The Service and Support Professionals Association, has identified three critical components for creating customer loyalty:
Bonding. They argue the quickest way to bond with a customer is to offer the right answer and a positive service experience, every time.
Personalisation.
Empowerment. Empowering customers means changing the way they receive support and freeing them from the burden of long, complex diagnostics.
According to Smith, this means organisations need to:
Discover what customers truly value
Lead, rather than simply manage and respond
To this end, Citrix is promoting its remote desktop software as a way of improving customers’ experiences when they engage with hotlines and support desks.
However, if we accept this extends to the other means by which customers seek help, then perhaps organisations should also consider user documentation when budgeting for and developing a customer experience strategy for your organisation. Perhaps, also Technical Authors should consider “Customer Experience Management” when developing the documentation.
Earlier this week, we had some publicity photos taken at Image1st’s photo studio in central London. We’ll be adding some of them to our Web site in the near future (the ones above are just some we took on the day).
Elizabeth, the makeup artist, asked the inevitable question, “so what do you do?” It’s often very tempting to answer simply with ”we work in IT”, because sometimes it can be a struggle to explain what is technical communication/documentation. Usually we say, “we explain technical ’stuff’ to non-technical people” or “we write the words that appear when you get stuck and hit F1 on a computer”.
Compared to the world of photography and image, it’s deeply unglamourous. However, we’d like to think it’s still useful and needed.
The photo shoot was great fun, with lots of laughter. It’s even worth considering simply as a team bonding exercise.
The fear of risk seems to be growing in significance within organisations. According to Intellect, the trade body for UK technology companies:
Operating risks have changed significantly as a result of prevailing economic conditions over the past 18 months. Companies have been under severe economic strain and are focused on adjusting to a drastically changed economic and regulatory environment.
While concentrating on revenue protection and cost reduction measures, companies have not recognised that their risk and impact profiles may have changed substantially while their resilience has deteriorated.
Intellect states these changes have had a significant impact in a number of areas:
Political and corporate instability brought about by the economic downturn has brought with it heightened levels of operational risk for organisations
Organisations are required to process, store and secure rapidly increasing amounts of data, which itself poses a huge risk.
Outsourcing has been widely embraced as a way for businesses to streamline operations whilst maintaining levels of service
The ‘domino effect’ of supply chain problems means that every organisation is at risk from the recession, both in terms of financial performance and operational continuity.
Limited capital investment in many organisations has made ‘manual’ services more attractive to CFOs.
The ‘domino effect’ of supply chain means clients are expecting less risky solutions from their software and technology suppliers. Where a software vendor could adopt a “no documentation” or “less documentation” approach six months ago, this is becoming less acceptable to customers.
Indeed, Google has been criticised for only offering user forums to assist Nexus One mobile phone users and for failing to provide decent user documentation with Google Wave.
There is also a greater need to document processes and procedures, in order to mimimise the risks listed above.
User documentation is in some ways comparable to insurance: sometimes seen as a grudge purchase and something that can be avoided … right up to the point with things start to go wrong.
However, one of the best ways to ensure problems are avoided, processes are followed correctly and issues are fixed is to write it down.
Social Media experts, such as David Armano, of Dachis Corp, are proposing new business measures for assessing the effectiveness of social media marketing. Armano is proposing five key measurement factors:
Attention: how many people are clicking on your site, blogs or tweets?
Engagement: how much interaction there is between the community and you?
Authority: your influence in the community and on the Web?
Virality: how your information spreads by digital word of mouth?
Health: the strength of the community and your online presence?
So can technical documentation be “re-framed” to meet these criteria? If so, will its value to the business become clearer?
I would suggest the most Documentation Managers would see these measurement factors playing to the strengths of technical documentation.
It wouldn’t take a great deal of effort to incorporate these factors into a documentation strategy. Be doing this, the efforts of the Technical Publications department would assist in maximising an organisation’s Social Web marketing efforts.
As a side effect, it could also move technical publications towards the centre of many modern organisations’ core activities.
I'm very pleased with the enhancements to the Help System. You created very clear topics for some areas that I find difficult to explain. You also identified a number of 'bugs' with the current version that have now been fixed. This just continues to improve the product.
Cherryleaf helps you explain technical information in an easy to understand way.
Depending on your situation, we can help you through our writing projects, recruitment, consultancy and training services.
