Comments on: Embracing the New Vernacular Instead of Pursuing the Holy Grail of Single Sourcing

By: Education Blog

Education Blog — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 04:22:12 +0000

Your post makes one think! Great article. Thanks for allowing me to comment!

By: Douglas K. Beagley

Douglas K. Beagley — Tue, 06 May 2008 16:05:19 +0000

I really liked this post… got me thinking. My company has been producing paper reference manuals for a long time now… and people do love them. They love the power of EVERY ANSWER being at hand. And since most of our users are over 50, they love the paper. And our raw, single-sourcing solution means we can produce a Web version at the same time we produce a paper version.

But moving forward… a quickstart guide, a series of how-to-videos, and a comprehensive, searchable built-in (or online) help might be the key to good software documentation.

I’m thinking that a “manual” is no longer the center or “heart” of the documentation. The help engine is. And producing manuals off of that, for specific purposes, is fine… but not the center. Interesting…

By: one man writes » This is not a video

one man writes » This is not a video — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 06:34:43 +0000

[...] to many for a few years now, yet it is never really the main focus of a documentation team. Tom has questioned this as well: “For too long I’ve minimized the importance of the audiovisual. Captivate — the industry [...]

By: Tom

Tom — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 16:55:11 +0000

I should clarify my post more. I mostly meant that instead of trying to reproduce an online help with a long paper manual that essentially offers the same material but in printed form, we should focus our efforts on providing more audiovisual content into our online help. Reason being, people seem to prefer this medium for learning.

I’m not advocating abandoning online help at all. Like Gordon said, often you want to search for how to do a task, and you don’t want to sit through a video. Agreed. In fact, the lack of search for videos is problematic.

Also, I should admit that my definition of single sourcing here is narrow. Of course there is single sourcing with online help to multiple targets for different audiences, and publishing to different formats. I’m not advocating against that.

In an ideal world, we could offer the same content in online help, PDF, mobile device, video, and braille. But usually time constraints limit what we can provide. If so, we should focus on the online help and audiovideo formats first (of course it depends on your audience …).

I’ve never seen anyone get excited at “long” manuals I produce for them. By long I mean anything over 30 pages. In fact, I remember giving someone a 27 page guide and seeing his totally disappointed reaction. He wanted a much shorter guide because it suggests that the product is easy to use. Users want 1-2 page guides to get up and running. Then when they need help, they search for a particular task using online help. At least that has been my experience.

The audiovisual medium is important when the task is tricky to describe, or if seeing the process makes it more understandable.

By: Documentation: words versus video by Communications from DMN

Documentation: words versus video by Communications from DMN — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 02:36:40 +0000

[...] Johnson has written an interesting post at his blog, in which he discusses embracing audio and video instead of "persuing the holy [...]

By: Gordon

Gordon — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 11:32:25 +0000

Funnily enough this is echoed by Adobe. I saw a presentation by them on Wednesday this week and they oooo-ed and aaahhh-ed over the ability to add video to a document.

So why don’t we concentrate on that? Possibly because we know that (relatively) no-one reads documentation, they only turn to it for help.

If I’m stuck with a product, the last thing I want to do is sit through a 2 min video, I want an answer and I want it now!

Yes they are useful if you have the time to use them, but I guess it’s seen as a luxury? I’ll expand on this on my blog I think…