Screencasts and video based learning content are growing in popularity, and we’re seeing a rise in the number of enquiries for this type of content. Estimating the time required to develop this type of content can vary quite considerably. The easiest way to estimate the time required is to use metrics based on the duration… Read more »
Category: Technical Communication
Book review: Every Page is Page One
There’s a joke in education along the lines that students are taught the notes their teachers wrote down at university 20 years earlier…without going through the heads of either. I mention this because there have been a number of technical communicators who have started to question the technical writing best practices that have been taught… Read more »
Every Sherlock Holmes needs his Watson (or Molly)
Series 3 of Sherlock has just started on BBC One in the UK. As nearly everyone knows, Sherlock Holmes is a genius consulting detective. Yet, as the saying goes, every Sherlock Holmes needs his Watson (or, in the first episode of this series, needs his Molly). Sherlock Holmes is only a part of a pair,… Read more »
The ideal length for instructional screencast videos
Screencast videos have become a popular means for delivering “how-to” information. One of the questions developers must address is, how long should you make your screencasts? At last weeks’s tekom conference, I saw an interesting presentation by Melanie Huxhold and Dr Axel Luther of SAP on how they develop screencasts for SAP’s products (Produkt- und Lernvideos als ideale… Read more »
Changing times in technical communication 3 – The long form Help topic
One of the most recent developments in web page design has been the introduction of “long form” web pages. Will we also see the long form approach used in Help, or perhaps start to influence the way some Help pages are designed?