@cherryleaf_tips is a new Twitter account from Cherryleaf that provides technical writing tips and articles relating to technical communication.
When you follow @cherryleaf_tips on Twitter, you’ll see a new tip tweeted at 11am GMT each day, over a period of 31 days. The messages then repeat, starting again from the beginning.
Ashkan Karbasfrooshan has written an article called “Context is King: How Videos Are Found And Consumed Online“, in which he argues:
Times have changed. In fact, less and less often do consumers even seek out content by actually going to a given site.
To paraphrase Jeff Jarvis
, if something is important, it will find me, be it via newsletter, Facebook, Twitter
The context – Facebook, Twitter, email – in which people are introduced to media and consume it is becoming more important than the content itself. Content is no longer king, context is…
This is why you need both lots of content and a diversity of it.
Karbasfrooshan is talking about videos, but will the same be said about user assistance?
Today, we assume users will seek out Help and other forms of technical documentation, but will that change? Will technical communicators need to disseminate their content via an increasing number of channels?
Visualisation Magazine has created a diagram showing how you can use Web 2.0 tools to increase the number of readers of your content – “building an online presence”. It shows the extent to which content can be republished today, through free sites, Web feeds and embedded content. It also shows how you can monitor and receive statistical information on its progress.
So why keep your content tucked away in a Help file, when it can be republished in some many other places as well?
At a rough guess, there no more than 20 UK technical authors using Twitter on a regular basis. Given the Social Web is going to play an increasing role in User Assistance and Customer Support, that’s a surprise.
What’s stopping them, I wonder?
It may be they don’t understand how to use Twitter, they might not have the time or they may not be convinced of the value of using Twitter. As I said, it’s a surprise.
I wonder if the BBC’s Technology correspondent, Rory Cellan-Jones, is regretting posting an article in August called “Read the manual? Never!” . In it, he said:
It may be sad that we no longer seem to have that thirst for knowledge about how things work. But I’m afraid I’m just not going to start reading the manual.
I say this, because in his recent Blog post about Google Wave, he complained about the lack of user guides for the application:
We saw a lot of bugs that still need fixing, and no very clear guide as to how to do so.
Rory’s experiences with Google Wave – unfamiliar concepts, uncertainty between features and bugs, unfamiliar tasks – illustrate why it’s not always possible to do away with the need for user documentation and user assistance.
To his credit, when I pointed this inconsistency out to Rory, via Twitter, he said “it’s a fair cop!!!”.
We’ve just relased a new training course that explains where the Social Web, and Twitter in particular, can fit into the world of the technical author/writer.
Originally delivered as a presentation for the prestigious User Assistance Europe Conference 2009, it has been extended and converted into a training course, containing videos and demonstrations of software applications, to help it all make sense.
You also get access to the full 37 minute, transatlantic video interview we recently conducted with Anne Gentle, author of “Conversation and Community: The Social Web for Documentation”, where we talked about The Social Web for Documentation.
Cherryleaf’s presentation at the UA Conference Europe 09 will be on “Twitter and the Social Web: Developing a strategy for technical authors”.
UA Conference
In this session, we’ll look at some of the research into how people use Twitter and social networking sites, and investigate the different communication strategies you can adopt.
We’ll address key questions, such as:
This session is an excerpt from an online training module on this topic that Cherryleaf is developing. This module will be available via Cherryleaf’s online shop in the near future.
Internet Psychologist Graham Jones wrote an article last week, in which he stated, search is dying, and is being replaced by sharing information socially.
“So worried is Microsoft about Google that they haven’t realised that Google is not their real competition any more. It is the likes of Twitter and Ecademy…Google already knows this. Much of their labs work and their adaptations of what they already offer are geared to sharing information socially. They realise that search as we know it is dying. Microsoft is so focused on fighting Google, they haven’t realised they are on the wrong battlefield.”
Let’s assume Graham is correct. Where does this leave online user assistance?
Since Online Help was introduced, technical communicators have provided hypertext links, key word search and an index to help users find information.
Today, there is greater emphasis on key word search (finding stuff via Google), and we’ve seen a few authors add tag clouds too.
So how could online user assistance (“Help”) be shared socially? Is it likely that someone will respond to each question by tweeting a link to a particular page in a Help file?
That’s incredibly labour-intensive. For Support teams to answer queries via Twitter might be less time-intensive than responding to emails, but it may be difficult to provide an answer within 140 characters. Most likely, they could provide to links to places where the question is answered.
We’ve talked about the emergence of “landing pages” in Web based Help (so have Michael Hughes and Matthew Ellison), and that may be a less intensive way to guide people to the information they need. By this I mean, point people towards say 6 landing pages, from which they can be guided quickly to the information they need.
It may also be difficult for users to pose their questions within the limitations of Twitter.
A more likely scenario, I believe, would be to create Twitter avatars. The fictional characters from “Mad Men” post regular tweets about their imaginary lives. If Don Draper and Peggy Olsen can tweet, then why not create a personas for your customers and let them do the same? Billy the Beginner and Patty the Power user, for example? Their posts could guide customers through the key tasks via a series of daily Twitter posts.
Of course, this is more than about how to best use Twitter. It’s about social networks, the ideas from the Cluetrain Manifesto and Web 2.0 ideas of syndicating content, collaborating with your user base and aggregating content.
Graham Jones concluded by saying ”just concentrate on providing and sharing good material”. Technical Authors can help the organisation provide good material. What we may all have to work out is how we can share this material in more effective ways.
It’s very hard to tell how much user documentation matters to people. One completely un-scientific way is by looking at the messages on Twitter, on any given day, that make mention of it.
Below are some of the messages posted on Wednesday 4th March 2009 that mention documentation.
We’ve omitted those messages that relate to legal documents and others not relating to user documentation, and we’ve removed the poster’s name. Some people are motivated enough to post a message because they hate the user documentation they are using; some because they like it so much; and others because they hate writing it.
Here they are:
Writing Documentation (sigh)
Documenting the documentation. I should burn these someday.
Rewriting some old VB5 apps that don’t have any comments or documentation.
Mired in documentation hell. Can’t take any more so off home to flop in front of telly with Pino Grigio.
Yeah, why AREN’t you using Groove yet? Now I gotta put all all documentation on some old media like CD or USB
Using Fiddler to inspect S3 requests from S3Fox – now that’s faster than reading documentation!!
I like the concept of Capistrano but the lack of documentation is alarming.
Trying to use 2 spot colors with pdflib in PHP. Also trying to think of an even more obscure, documentation-lacking task. Failing at both
When did the WordPress API documentation go to sh*t?
Pulling together blog content for mvccontrib.. Anyone have a preference on what feature needs documentation in MvcContrib
It’s crunch time. documentation review final stages commencing. t minus 2.5 days to finish.
Why I always understand the documentation with mistaken meaning
Another day writing documentation … good times. (yawn)
Documentation or help sites are next to useless without a search!
Time to brush off the GMaps API documentation, right, right?
Ahh cool. i do have the notation guide, i think i’m just impatient haha. i basically only use it to update documentation!
Writing Documentation
Is working on an endless series of software installs and documentation… Yaaaay…
Wishing Cappuccino actually had some proper documentation and decent tutorials, I suppose it is early days though.
Is back to writing documentation
Listing to Explosions in the Sky and writing documentation. Not exactly Zen meditation, but close enough for this morning.
Cursing inadequate documentation. But going out later for drinks and canapes, mwah mwah
Eurgh! More documentation. I’m frakkin’ siock of documentation!
Motivation issues again. Revisiting an old project and rewriting documentation isn’t my idea of fun.
Dear Apple, This documentation is not good enough for a parameter called userInfo: “The user info the new timer.”. Thank you, Dave.
Reading documentation.
Frantically writing documentation and updating config for a big release… no joy to deploy ;o)
Taking screenshots and writing boring documentation
First I have to finish programming it, then outcome 3 (testing it then 5 test journeys + documentation + screengrabs) then outcome 4
Ok so maybe so far documentation day isn’t so hellish.
Taking some Mac documentation we did and creating the same docs for Windows XP. Surprised at what works on XP, as well as what doesn’t.
Congrats on the upcoming worldwide Documentation Sprints
Congrats to @add1sun for winning one of the 6 Knight Drupal Initiative winners for documentation sprints. w00t!
In place of proper documentation (coming soon), here are some lengthy release notes for WebComic 1.8 & InkBlot 1.3
Getting intimate with Adobe Acrobat as I create boatloads of documentation for our SACS review next year. Brain turning to mush!
Do it! Joomla has a bit of a learning curve. WP is great for blogging and has its
own CMS as well as a plethora of documentation.
Writing documentation for SMARTY FUNCTION OF DOOM. Seriously, that’s what it’s called.
Canon Professional Services documentation almost as nice as apple packaging!
Putin mais quand est ce que ces putains de projets open-source fourniront une documentation complète d’utilisation…
Proofreading is a very valuable skill to have when writing technical documentation and specifications
Printing the Admin Guide for Respondus Lockdown Browser prior to installing it for our 8-week pilot test. 12 pages of documentation. yay…
Researching twitter for documentation use — ideas, anyone???
Writing up documentation on maintaining the RSS Feed. I hadn’t realized just how many steps there were until I started writing them down.
JCE is also a lot easier for novices to use which means less documentation.
Just baby barfed!! Doing more documentation!!!
Today is documentation day. Oh joy. How can I make this fun?
Pouring through PayPal API documentation
IT Intervention ep. 4: Sysadmin gets out of control setting up 55 virtual machines with no documentation, standards or even hostnames.
Writing another CMS documentation for a website which is due to go live next week.. 25 pages thus far.
Hello, software documentation writers: QuickStart is two words, separated by a space, that thing beneath your thumb.
Documenting processes. Not exciting, but it’s better than not having documentation!
Looking into using the Amazon Seller Central SOAP API but documentation seems a bit sparse, not great for company like amazon
After many tries to undestand values of a MATRIX 3D and iam at the same point. Can’t find a great documentation or sth to solve that!
Writing help documentation might be useful but it still sucks
Breaking my balls with springsecurity.. reading its documentation! o/