Low-gibberish overviews of online content technologies, tools, and methodologies to answer the popular question "What the heck is...?" Topic suggestions always welcome...
(Excerpted from my forthcoming book “Writing Effective
Online Content Project Specifications”)
We rarely think of doing usability testing for online help
or documentation (online content) because, after all, it’s just text. In fact, online
content is text, but software forms a big part of it in the navigation, retrievability,
and other features. And like any software, it should be reviewed for usability.
What if no group in your company does formal usability
testing? Can you do it yourself without spending a lot of money? Yes. The results
won’t be statistically significant but they will be useful and inexpensive. How to do this? In brief…
·Create
a prototype of your online content project. It can be a small but fully
functional online output or a paper prototype. (If you’re not familiar with
paper prototyping, see Paper Prototyping: The Fast and Easy Way to Design and Refine
User Interfaces
by Carolyn Snyder, published in 2003 and available on Amazon. The book is an
excellent introduction to the subject, with additional points on usability in
general.)
·Create several little scenarios
with questions whose answers can be found in the prototype. For example, “How many types of fixed asset
depreciation are there?” or “What is the specific gravity of tungsten?”
·Find a small but representative group
of test subjects.
If you’re testing a product for a general audience, you might set up your test
in a conference room and invite people in at random to be test subjects. If
your company runs a user conference, that’s also a good place to find subjects.
·Tell the subjects that you need
just fifteen minutes of their time. Offer a small gift (sometimes called swag or “tchotchkes”)
as an inducement for them to help. (No pens or coffee cups – both badly overused.)
For more impact, tell the subjects you’ll enter them in a raffle for dinner for
two at a local restaurant.
·Give the subjects the scenarios
and ask them to find the answers. Watch them but don’t say anything or offer any
help. You can tell them to follow the so-called “speak aloud protocol” where
they’re free to say what they’re thinking. This may be a bit uncomfortable to
hear but it’s the feedback that you want.
The object is to see if the subjects can navigate through the online content to find
the answers to the questions posed in the scenarios and how difficult and
frustrating the process was. The results won’t be statistically significant,
but may well be very enlightening. That’s what you want.
Beyond the
Bleeding Edge was a conference session that I ran at the STC’s summit from 1999
until 2014, and a column I wrote for the STC’s Intercom magazine from 2000 to
2015. The goal was to introduce technologies that were new to tech comm – on
the leading (or bleeding) edge and beyond – such as XHTML, WSDL, JavaHelp, haptic interfaces,
the W3C RDF metadata standard, and more.
The Bleeding
Edge is now Hyper/Word Services’ technology blog. Look for a new post every 3-4
weeks on various technologies, tools, and methodologies, with a focus on mobile
content and the Information 4.0 concept, plus whatever else seems appropriate.
The Bleeding Edge was a series of presentations at the
annual STC conference (now the Summit). Its goal was to address cutting-edge
technologies and methodologies that emerged too close to the conference to be
addressed by the standard presentation proposal route. I proposed it after the
1998 conference after hearing comments that there weren’t enough advanced
sessions. After approval by then STC-president Mark Hannigan and Assistant to
the President Deborah Sauer, I launched the Bleeding Edge in 1999. I ran it
from 1999 to 2014 except for a two year hiatus due to some organizational
issues in 2008 and 2009.
Bleeding Edge presentations covered JavaHelp coding, XHTML,
haptic interfaces (IBM sent a speaker from London, as I recall), the W3C RDF
metadata standard, search engine optimization, XSLT, on-demand publishing, and similar
topics. My Beyond the Bleeding Edge column in STC Intercom came out of the
Bleeding Edge. The Bleeding Edge also spun off a “standards watch” session,
with speakers discussing developments in bodies like the W3C and IEEE, and several
“standards watch” columns in Intercom.
The Summit organizers decided not to run the Bleeding Edge
in 2015 because they thought the Summit’s technical level had risen to the
point where the Bleeding Edge was no longer needed. From what I saw of the
presentations in Columbus, I agree. Although I’ll miss the Bleeding Edge, its
demise is a positive sign for the Summit overall.
My thanks again to Mark Hannigan and Deborah Sauer, and to
all the presenters over the years who did such an outstanding job of helping
keep STC on the cutting (or “bleeding”) edge.
RoboHelp was one of the first HATs (help authoring tools)
and has long had a big part in molding today’s online help and content world.
Adobe acquired RoboHelp in 2005 as part of its purchase of Macromedia and has
been extending it since then, starting with v. 6 in 2007 and continuing through
v. 11, released on January 14, 2014.
In this review, I’ll focus on what I consider to be the most
significant features of RoboHelp 11 and what they say about trends in tech
comm. There are two, enhanced support for responsive design as part of HTML5
publishing, and the cloud-based collaboration added to the Resource Manager.
HTML5 Publishing and Responsive Design
I’ll start with a quick overview of HTML5 and responsive
design if you’re not familiar with the terms.
HTML5 Concepts
HTML5 is the successor to XML and earlier versions of HTML. It’s
both a coding language and an output format. RoboHelp 11 still uses XHTML,
introduced in v. 8, as the native coding environment, but added HTML5 as a browser-based
output format in v. 10 and extended it in v. 11. You can still use WebHelp for browser-based outputs, but HTML5 has
several benefits that make it worth looking at as a replacement for WebHelp,
including:
·Searchability by web crawlers. The WebHelp
output format has met our needs for years but has a problem that didn’t
manifest itself until web search crawlers came into use. WebHelp uses “framesets”
to controls layout, but framesets block web crawlers from going beyond the home
page in browser-based help. The result is that the online help that you write
and distribute as WebHelp won’t be found by a crawler and won’t appear in the
list of hits from a Google search. In other words, users can’t find your content through Google. This may
not matter if the content is behind a firewall or login and only available to
customers. But if your company is adopting a more public-facing strategy, this
can be a strategic limitation. HTML5 fixes that limitation.
·Support for CSS3. This extension of the CSS
(Cascading Style Sheet) 2 standard gives more power and flexibility for
formatting under modern browsers.
·Support for a new type of mobile apps called
“hybrid apps” that are based, in part, on HTML5. RoboHelp doesn’t output hybrid
apps, but the HTML5 code that it does
output forms part of the foundation for those apps. In other words, HTML5
output is a step toward hybrid apps.
Responsive Design Concepts
The idea for responsive design arose as more and more
devices with different screen sizes, resolutions, and other properties appeared
on the market. We can optimize our
outputs for one or two devices, but it quickly becomes technically difficult
and cost-prohibitive to optimize our outputs for every device on which they might
appear. The emerging answer is “responsive design”.
Responsive design says that content can automatically change
its design based on the properties of the device on which it’s displayed – e.g.
it’s device-agnostic. For example, HTML5 output from a project can change its
design depending on whether it’s displayed on a PC, tablet, or smartphone. (The
image below shows how content might reformat itself based on the device. The
three images look the same at first glance, but note how the Greek temple, the Adobe
icon, and the controls move or disappear depending on the output.
Automatically…)
RoboHelp’s Support for HTML5 Output and Responsive Design
RoboHelp 10 supported what Adobe called “Multiscreen HTML5”
– basically responsive design. It used “screen profiles” (to specify different
screen resolutions that controlled the redesign), “screen layouts” (to design
the page types and customize them for the different resolutions, and CSS “media
queries” (to define the specifics of the page format for each resolution set
through the screen profiles). This mix of features let you automatically change
the design of the output and, by using conditional build tags, change the
content itself depending on the device. It was a good start, but there were two
issues.
·Some of the concepts, particularly CSS media
queries, were new to many users.
·Some of the work, especially screen layout
design, was complex and could be time-consuming.
RoboHelp 11 goes a long way toward addressing both issues by
adding a new output type, Responsive HTML5. Responsive HTML5 is a streamlined
version of Multiscreen HTML5 that uses predefined layouts for different screen
sizes and properties. In other words, much of the setup work has been done for
you. If you do want to customize a
layout, the process is semi-wizard-driven. To contrast the two approaches, the image
below shows the layout editor for the Topic page type in Multiscreen HTML5.
There’s a lot of power available in the toolbar but you have
to know what you’re doing. In contrast, the image below shows the layout
customization editor for a layout, in this case the Theme2_Government layout,
for the Responsive HTML5.
The many screens prompts make it easy to see what screen object
you’re changing and the options are clearly labeled in the Properties pane. So
customization will be fairly straightforward, hopefully tasteful as well. And
Adobe has a link to a layout gallery which currently lists two predefined
themes, with more sure to come, so you won’t have to start creating yours from
scratch.
So Responsive HTML5 is easier than Multiscreen HTML5 but
less customizable. The main difference is that Multiscreen HTML5 lets you use conditional
build tags to vary the content for individual devices while Responsive HTML5 lets
you use conditional build tags but applies the same build tagged content for
all devices. This should be a minor point if you want to output the same
content to all devices, but may affect your planning if you literally want
different content output to a tablet versus a smartphone.
If all this sounds confusing, here’s a simple summary. If
you want to output a project using responsive design, open the project in
RoboHelp 11, select Responsive HTML5 output in the Single Source Layouts pod,
select the desired layout on the General tab, and generate. When RoboHelp
finishes generating, click the View Result button (and allow blocked content if
you use IE). The output displays in a browser window. Now grab a corner of the
browser window and start reducing its size. Once you get to certain sizes – think
tablet and smartphone – you’ll see the format change automatically. You’ll have
to think about the actual design but the sheer mechanics are impressively
simple. And it’s just neat to watch.
Cloud-Based Collaboration via Resource Manager
I’ll start off with a quick overview of the Resource Manager
if you’re not familiar with this feature.
Adobe added the Resource Manager several versions ago as a
way to share files between projects. For example, let’s say you want to use the
same CSS in two projects. The old approach was to find the desired file in the
“master” project’s folder in Windows Explorer and copy it to the other project.
This worked, but you were doing the file “sharing” manually, outside RoboHelp,
so it was easy to paste the copy of the file-to-be-shared in the wrong folder.
The Resource Manager eliminates this problem. You’re sharing
the files in RoboHelp under RoboHelp’s control, so they’ll automatically be put
in the correct folder.
The one thing missing in this scenario was file sharing via the
cloud. RoboHelp 11 fixes this by letting you set up a shared location using
various popular cloud-based services rather than a network drive. You’ll see
this option in the Location Type field on the Add Shared Location dialog box
that displays when you click on the Add Shared Location icon on the Resource
Manager pane, shown in the image below.
You can select from Dropbox, Google Drive, SkyDrive, or
others that you might use. When you select one, RoboHelp will find its folder on
your PC and fill in the Path field for you. You can also set up subfolders
within a service and select just that subfolder. Once set up, you can share
topics (new in v. 11 – previous versions didn’t let you share topics) and
various control files. If a topic contains embedded elements such as images,
RoboHelp will detect their use and carry them over with the topic. (You will
have to pull in any snippets separately, but RoboHelp will add them to the
topic once you do.) There are also various ways to synchronize changed files.
Overall, the cloud-based collaboration feature is a useful
extension of the file sharing concept behind the Resource Manager and a
reflection of changes in tech comm.
Other Changes
In addition to the two main features defined above, several
others correct problems or omissions. These include:
·Importing headers and footers when importing a
Word document.
·Defining different headers and footers in
different master pages and applying them to different page types in print
output.
·A new color scheme for the interface for greater
contrast and readability.
·SWFs now display and play when included in Word
output.
Summary
RoboHelp 11 will be largely familiar and easy to learn for any
user of an older version. The biggest new convenience is the addition of
cloud-based collaboration, but even that fits into Resource Manager.
The most important new feature, in my opinion, is the
addition of the Responsive HTML5 output. Few of my RoboHelp clients need mobile
or display-agnosticism yet but every one I’ve spoken with sees it as on the
horizon. Responsive HTML5 makes it easy for them to get their feet wet in
mobile and should help them ease into the full power of the Multiscreen HTML5
output.
Do you need to upgrade to v. 11? If you don’t need
responsive design, cloud-based collaboration, or multiple headers and footers
in your print output, probably not. But if mobile or display-agnosticism is on
your horizon, RoboHelp 11 is a worthwhile upgrade and a job well-done by Adobe.
This post presents a portion of a LinkedIn conversation thread dealing with using analytics, such as Google Analytics, in tech comm. The thread picks up with my request to the original post. (Thanks to Evin Wilkins for starting this whole thing, and Hagay Vider, Matt Sullivan, and Marion Deland for the responses that form the thread.) And with that...
----------------------------------------------
Neil Perlin
President, Hyper/Word Services
… I'm going to be guest-editing an upcoming issue of the
STC Intercom magazine with the theme of the bleeding edge. I've got all my
topics covered save for one, the use of analytics with regard to tech comm and
online help - RoboHelp, Flare, et al. I'm having trouble finding a writer for
that topic but I'd hate to omit it. Hagay and Matt and everyone else - do you
guys know of anyone who's familiar with analytics and who's used it in a tech
comm context?
Technical and Marketing Communications Manager at High
Security Labs
Neil, if you're looking for content professionals who use
Google Analytics, then you should be looking in a different direction. I have
used GA for other purposes, not to get usage statistics of technical
documentation, but I understand your reasoning. You should look towards other
fields for inspiration.
The most common use of GA is to "monetize"
content, meaning that web site owners write content that would grab eyes, which
justifies charging money to advertise on their sites. This is different than
the Wall Street Journal selling subscriptions, and then restricting some
content only to paid subscribers. This is free and open content that's paid for
by ads.
Technical documentation is not often monetized, since
it's usually provided as a type of "customer service" to customers
who already bought the product. The only reason I can think of to perform
analytics on technical communications is to coordinate with customer service.
Where do customers look for information? What information is missing that
causes them to open a service call? Should we include this information in the
documentation to prevent service calls?
GA is often used for free sites that provide useful
information to readers who will follow through with purchasing a product. Such
sites include articles on investing, consumer issues, dieting, health and food.
These are often the most popular sites, and advertisers know that their readers
are ready to make a purchase. The more hits their pages get, the more money
they can charge for ad space. Some of the larger sites have a "contact
us" page where they sell ad space directly to customers. They provide
analytics results as part of the quote. The smaller sites use Google AdSense
some other ad space marketing service.
Another group of sites are "news aggregators".
They copy news sites on a wholesale basis, and save the content for subscribers
who do research, want to dig up require old content and the like. The analytics
helps them know which information is in demand. This is much closer to the
requirements of technical documentation.
In any case, using GA on your own technical documentation
will not create enough traffic to show substantial analytics. You options are
to either publish something and get as many of your friends to visit the site,
or you can create analytics on different pages in existing popular site, and
show how they compare. Visiting your own site often yourself won't work, since
the analytics looks for unique IP addresses.
On to the subject for bleeding edge, technical writers
sometimes take jobs writing general interest articles and blogs on technical
subjects, like software, consumer electronics, medicine, and the like.
Sometimes its very technical. This is actually a rapidly growing area within
technical/specialized writing.
I previously wrote articles and blogs for an electronics
company. An accountant friend of mine recently asked me to write a blog for his
accounting firm's web site. He likes my writing better than his own. A resort
where I stayed asked me to write a review. None of these examples wanted to
monetize the content, but it's not far. Getting prestige for putting out a blog
is usually higher priority for them than the actual analytics, and they
probably wouldn't know what to do with those analytics.
The first issue with analytics is why you want it and
what you expect to get out of it.
Co-author of Publishing Fundamentals: Unstructured
FrameMaker 11. Trainer and Developer in Tech Comm and eLearning
Sorry Neil, I don't know anyone who has done this, but
I'd do it on spec for a client if they were interested!
Hagay, I respectfully disagree with your assessment of GA only in terms of
monetizing content. While a monetary transaction is certainly *one* goal of GA,
knowing more about your users and knowing what they do (and don't) respond to
are never a bad idea. Improving customer service and decreasing employee time
spent on problem solving affect the bottom line as much as a few more
transactions.
And while a small company or resort may not have time to fully contemplate GA
on their blog, or even their site, many companies have the scale to do so.
Even small orgs can use GA to determine their spend on marketing, content dev,
and other significant activities.
I thought Evan's original premise was a good one, and would bet dollars to
doughnuts that embedding the GA code would be do-able, and worthwhile for any
org that currently does GA.
Thanks for your post. I don't entirely agree with you regarding tech comm's use
of GA since while tech comm (probably) isn't going to be monetizing contact,
they still want to know who is using it and its successes and failures (which
is basically your point about coordinating with customer service). That
disagreement aside, I think your response would make a fine blog post that
introduces one aspect of analytics. Do you have a blog on which you could put
your post? If not, would you mind if I put it on my blog, with full attribution
to you of course, as a discussion point for tech comm?
Thanks for your post in response to Hagay. I think you and I are seeing a
different side of GA because we're in the same field, whereas I suspect Hagay
is coming at it from a different angle. (Hagay, true?) Watch the April Intercom
for an article about analytics for tech comm as part of a bleeding edge theme
to the issue.
Technical and Marketing Communications Manager at High
Security Labs
Thanks to both of you, Neil and Matt.
Yes, I am coming from a different angle. I have worked
with Google Analytics in the past. It was of limited use as a tool for my
technical publications, but I more often documented its uses and features in
the line of business of the companies where I worked.
The reason GA is so new to technical writers is its limited perceived benefit
(I emphasize perceived). GA is not new. It is already very strong in other
areas that find its ability to generate revenue or save money. This is also
where technical communications can benefit, and benefit the companies who
employ the technical writers.
We are already aware how the old school format of
technical documentation, which uses the printed page paradigm, is gradually
shifting to mostly/only electronic publishing and distribution.
Companies that needed technical documents didn't always
see it in full context of its operations and line of business, and neither did
the technical writers. What was not so obvious was how technical communications
can benefit marketing, sales and support. The technical writers know little
about who reads their documentation, how much they actually read (if at all),
and especially what content they miss that eventually turns into an expensive
service call. This is where the savings comes in - a service call that could
have been resolved in advance with a visit to the WebHelp. GA can help locate
and link the support expenses to specific items of documented information. I
have used GA to a limited extent in my technical documentation, but the traffic
was not heavy enough to provide any useful insights.
The newer side is generating revenue through technical
communications. I know of companies who are considering monetizing their
technical documentation, but none who actually tried to sell it, let alone made
any money. This is especially common with companies who market a FREE-MIUM
product or service. The initial product is basic and free, but advanced
features are only available with a paid subscription or by purchasing the
"Pro" version. With this model, users of the basic free product get a
short Quick Start tutorial, in a web page, PDF download, Video, interactive
Flash, or some combination. The heavier side of technical communications is
only provided to paying customers, and is part of the full product support
package. Again, I have yet to see a company that succeeded selling its user
manuals, but then I am not in contact with every new company.
This is a new area, and certainly "Bleeding
Edge."
Co-author of Publishing Fundamentals: Unstructured
FrameMaker 11. Trainer and Developer in Tech Comm and eLearning
@Neil, feel free to use this as blog fodder!
I think it's an interesting topic, though as I said I've not implemented GA
code in a project yet. If as Hagay said, the sample size is just too small,
then perhaps in smaller implementations, it's just not worth it. But even for
small samples, you'd get a sense of the number of users, and what they're
doing.
Coming in on this late...We use Google Analytics to
measure our RH projects for clients all the time. We embed the code into the
master, and publish as WebHelp We have a different account set up for each
client.
It does have limited use - it can't measure exactly who is reading the files,
which is fine because it protects the privacy of the user (important in Europe,
especially). But it tells the client which city/country the user is in, and
whether it is a mobile device. If you dig down, you can see which pages are
accessed the most, which is also useful. (While the overall project is
addressed as index.htm, the individual pages are bookmarks, and can be found.)
I gave two presentations about “mobile” at the Biola.Digital
(http://events.biola.edu/bioladigital/)
conference in La Mirada, CA last week. The conference focused in large part on
the use of technology in ministry or, per the web site, “…vision, knowledge, and relationships necessary to
be thoughtful stewards of digital technologies for the cause of Christ.”
To a
degree, the use of technology in ministry has the same issues as in any
other setting – ensuring adequate server capacity, building a social media presence, dealing
with an audience with different technology skills and equipment, etc. But, as
in so many markets, the use of technology in ministry also has its own peculiar problems.
One, noted by Jason Caston (http://www.jasoncaston.com/)
in his presentation “How to Get One Million Social Media Fans”, has to do with
the use of social media in a personality-driven environment.
For example, let’s
say church X has John Doe as its pastor. (This might just as easily be a conference or company with a specific person as
its face.) Pastor Doe has written books, appears in videos on YouTube, and so on. Pastor Doe is the face of the
church. For whom does the church solicit followers on social media, Pastor Doe
or Church X? It’s important because the departure of Pastor Doe
might throw the church into turmoil or kill it outright. The answer appears to be to solicit social media followers
on multiple tracks – the personality and the
organization. It seems self-evident, but many self-evident things aren’t until
after the fact.
Do you work for a church or non-profit? Are you near LA?
I’ll be giving two presentations about “mobile” for the biola.digital
conference (http://events.biola.edu/bioladigital/)
run by Biola College in La Mirada on June 4-6.
The conference has three tracks – theology, strategy, and
education. I’m speaking in the Strategy track on "Mobile 101: Understanding What Your Ministry
Needs to Do Now!" and "A Deep (But Non-Techie) Dive into
Mobile."
Why talk about mobile at a
conference devoted to ministry?
Technology is everywhere,
including churches. The Strategy track presentations reflect this, covering
topics like mobile learning, how to get one million social media fans, using
Pinterest… and mobile.
How does mobile fit in?
The smartphones and tablets we
see all around us are in churches as well, especially those with younger
congregations, and there’s more and more talk about needing to “go mobile”. The
problem is that just saying “go mobile” is too vague… Without defining what
that means, it’s easy to waste time and money and wind up with a disappointing
product or no product at all. My two presentations focus on this risk.
Session one, “Mobile 101:
Understanding What Your Ministry Needs to Do Now!" introduces the whole subject
of mobile. We’ll define:
·Good (and bad) reasons to go
mobile in the first place.
·Issues to think about when going
mobile (such as why your church app isn’t likely to compete with Angry Birds
and what this means).
·Specific ways to go mobile
ranging from converting Microsoft Word content to PDF to creating a true “app”
for iPhone and Android phone users in your church. (If the latter sounds
terrifying, you may be surprised to learn that a new group of authoring tools
makes it possible to create an app with little or no programming background at
all.)
The second session, "A Deep
(But Non-Techie) Dive Into Mobile" picks up where the first session left
off. It introduces an iPhone/Android app created for a church outside Boston,
MA and shows how to create such apps using tools designed for non-programmers,
in this case a tool called ViziApps Studio (www.viziapps.com). You’ll look at the features in the app, the
tool, and modify the app yourself with no programming. The
result? A demo app that you can take back to your church to show how it’s
possible to go mobile now!
