And suddenly every tech comm and content strategy conference seems to be about getting your content ready for chatbots. Makes sense if you are a conference organizer. Chatbots are sexy and sex sells, even if the definition of sexy is a grey box with a speaker sitting on the counter. But chatbots are not the… Read More »
An interesting article in Popular Science charts the rise and laments the fall of the manual. Instructions Not Included: What the Disappearance of the Common Manual Says About Us, traces the origins of the manual as a form of technical communication, and notes how many products now come with no manual. It draws from this dire… Read More »
I am very grateful to Jonatan Lundin for a lengthy conversation on the subject of topic patterns because it helped me to crystalize something important about the basis for the principles of EPPO information design and how they are derived. Approaches based on psychology Traditionally, theories of information design have been psychologically based. Researchers (usually… Read More »
The straight path. It is an idea with immense psychological appeal to us. Every valley, Isaiah promises, shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill laid low (Isaiah 40:4). As communicators, we naturally want to lay out a straight path for our readers. But the truth is, we lack the power to make the crooked straight… Read More »
Summary: Writers worry about whether links will distract users. To discuss this concern, we need to begin by distinguishing between imperative links that command the reader to click and passive links that merely make finding ancillary material easier. Tom Johnson wrote a post recently in which he raised an important question about linking, and referred… Read More »
My Book is currently in the technical review stage — meaning that people who I and the publisher respect have been asked to read and comment on the full draft. It is a humbling, daunting, and also energizing experience, and I am deeply grateful to the reviewers for their time, energy, and expertise. One of… Read More »
Ask what minimalism is (in a Tech Comm context), and you are likely to get a recitation of the four principles of minimalism. Per JoAnn Hackos, the four basic principles of minimalism are ♦ Principle 1: Choose an action-oriented approach ♦ Principle 2: Anchor the tool in the task domain ♦ Principle 3: Support error… Read More »
Why does help still kind of suck even after so many years? Tom Johnson asks this poignant question in his post Do We Need a New Approach to Help? Why Are Users So Apathetic Towards Help after 50 Years of Innovation? Tom provides a great survey of the trends and ideas in help design, starting with… Read More »
John Carroll, in Nicky Bleiel’s recent interview in Intercom, suggests that there has emerged a theory that the advent of the Web means that information does not need to be designed anymore: I do think that techniques like crowdsourcing and search have caused, what I think, is a radical position that there is no need to design… Read More »