Writing For The Web: Improving Search Engine Optimization and Enhancing The User Experience

April 30, 2007 Blog No Comments

Clients sometimes make the mistake of writing long, editorial-style text for the web. We’ve found that even perfectly competent writers – professionals, like marketing communications pros and publishers of various types – often do not understand how writing for the web is different than writing for print-based media. Basically, most people don’t “read” on the web, not at least, in the sense of reading a book, or magazine or even a piece of marketing collateral. Instead, people come to the web in hopes it can help them “to do” something: Read the full article…

Decentralized By Design: How UNICEF Manages Its Global Web Sites

April 27, 2007 Blog No Comments

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) provides long-term humanitarian and developmental assistance to children and mothers in developing countries. Its programs emphasize developing community-level services to promote the health and well-being of children. Its field offices currently support 51 country Web sites and the organization adds one additional country Web site each month on average. UNICEF achieved this goal without any formalized “Web globalization” budget or global top-down mandate. Instead, UNICEF’s web content globalization success is due to its people— the support staff at headquarters and a group of highly Read the full article…

Skype Gurus Proclaim Their Love For Adobe FrameMaker

April 27, 2007 Blog No Comments

While reading Skype: The Definitive Guide, we discovered an interesting—albeit strangely placed—proclamation of love for a popular technical writer’s tool: Adobe FrameMaker. In the the book’s preface, the authors, Harry Max and Taylor Ray, thank all the usual people—staff, friends, family. Then, they write: “Last, we want to recognize Adobe Systems for supporting Adobe FrameMaker, the best professional word-processing software available, period.” No details are provided by the authors about the proclamation. Our guess: They used FrameMaker to write the book.

CMS and Change: Between Optimism and Pessimism is Realism

April 26, 2007 Blog 2 Comments

Emma Hamer of eHamer Associates provides a brief and informative article on change and content management in the April issue of the Content Management Professionals newsletter. Hamer identifies the importance of training, workshops, peer mentoring, one-on-one coaching, and other strategies that can help abate change-related problems.

The Globalization Industry Primer: Get Your Copy Today

April 25, 2007 Blog No Comments

Interested in localization but don’t know where to start? Get a copy of the Globalization Industry Primer, a free, downloadable overview of best practices in the globalization industry. It’s loaded with useful information about the standards, companies, and technologies that make globalization of content possible. Whether you are new to globalization or experienced, this quick read booklet will provide you with the big picture needed to understand this vital area of today’s global economy. The Primer includes information about: Localization Internationalization Planning for Globalization Global Business Priorities Strategic and Maintenance Read the full article…

Web Site Makeover: Legacy Retrieval Tools Save Time For Users

April 24, 2007 Blog No Comments

By Jean Graef, Founder of the Montague Institute, special to TheContentWrangler.com In the pre-Internet days, users relied on indexes, tables of contents, databases, card catalogs, and annotated bibliographies to find information. These “legacy retrieval tools” worked reasonably well in the orderly system created by editors, publishers, and librarians. With the World Wide Web came a new kind of system: a giant electronic warehouse with no shelves, no labels, no maps, and even no lights. Into this virtual warehouse, we dumped a huge pile of content — much of it lacking Read the full article…

Pipes: Leveraging The XML Publish Subscribe Model

April 24, 2007 Blog No Comments

In the past few years, there’s been a lot of chatter about the power of XML and how it will change the way we create, manage, and deliver information. There’s no doubt that this is indeed happening. The rise of structured authoring, the increasing importance of content reuse, and emergence of Content Component Management are all made possible by XML. If you’ve been paying attention to the XML discussions, you probably know about the ten goals of XML. You might also know about the ten predictions for XML in 2007. Read the full article…

Documentation and Training East: Moving Your Career Forward (October 16-19, 2007)

April 23, 2007 Blog No Comments

Held in the birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution, Lowell, Massachusetts (a quick shuttle ride from Boston’s Logan International Airport), the theme of the 8th Bi-Annual Documentation & Training Conference is Advancing Your Career. No, you won’t see any resume writing or online portfolio workshops at this event. And no, they’ll be no advanced Microsoft Word Tips and Tricks classes either. Instead, you’ll be exposed to new tools, technologies, and standards that can help you improve your value as a communication professional. And, you’ll be challenged to think differently about Read the full article…

DocTrain UX Roundup: Salim Ismail Makes Attendees “Think Differently”

April 22, 2007 Blog No Comments

What a show! Documentation and Training: The User Experience (April 18-21, 2007) was a big success. Several hundred technical communication, information management, training, and user experience professionals converged on beautiful Vancouver, BC. While there is much to report about the first DocTrain conference held on the west coast of North America (we’re gathering up our thoughts and will publish them soon), this post will focus on the featured speaker, Salim Ismail, head honcho at The Brickhouse, a technology innovation incubator from Yahoo! During his keynote address (and in a subsequent Read the full article…

Using Technical Communication Skills in User Experience

April 21, 2007 Blog No Comments

In Using Technical Communication Skills in User Experience (Boxes and Arrows), user experience maven Teresa Putkey explores the relationship between technical communication professionals and usability. She offers not only well-written and interesting prose, but also provides sound advice for technical communicators interested in making a move to the user experience field. “It started with the small stuff,” Putkey writes. “I sweated it all: field labels, button positions, lining up the label and the field, ensuring the icon was understandable. After 2 1/2 years of correcting designs, the heavens opened: the Read the full article…

DocTrain UX Update: Day One

April 19, 2007 Blog No Comments

Documentation and Training: The User Experience started today in beautiful Vancouver, BC. The first day of the event included three half-day workshops on topics including task analysis and information modeling for DITA (Alan Houser), customer-centric content management (Ann Rockley), and information design and architecture (Thom Haller). The sessions were jam-packed. Many more people than we imagined showed up to participate. Rooms were set to overflow capacity. Not a bad problem to have. Of course, as one would expect at a user experience conference, we had our share of user experience Read the full article…

Let The Music Play: Saving Internet Radio

April 18, 2007 Blog No Comments

If you’re a music lover, you may already be one of millions of subscribers who listen to internet radio services like Pandora or LastFM. But a recent ruling by the Copyright Royalty Board may put an end to the popular web radio services. The ruling increases webcasters’ royalty rates between 300 and 1200 percent over the next 5 years, jeopardizing the industry and threatening to homogenize Internet radio, internet broadcasters complain. You can help. Join SaveNetRadio, a coalition made up of artists, labels, listeners, and webcasters whose goal is to Read the full article…

Long Distance Carriers Block Free Conference Calls; Complaints Cause Carriers To Rethink Strategy

April 17, 2007 Blog No Comments

Last month, consumers from around the United States joined forces to help free conference call providers fight the big long distance service providers: AT&T/Cingular, Qwest, and Sprint. While you may likely have missed this battle, you may have been impacted by the tactics employed by the long distance carriers. If you have recently had difficulty using a free conference call service, you likely thought the call organizer screwed up and sent the wrong call-in number or that the service was down. You may have chalked that experience up to the Read the full article…

New Product Allows You To See How Users Interact With Your Site

April 16, 2007 Blog No Comments

Starting today, you’ll no longer have to rely on usability gurus to tell you what works and what doesn’t on your websites and blogs! No, we’re not dissing user experience pros. Chances are their advice has been spot on all along. But now, thanks to some ingenious code warriors at TapeFailure.com, you’ll know for sure. In brief, TapeFailure let’s you record user actions as they browse your site and play them back just like a movie. We think the service is the next step in the evolution of web site Read the full article…