Yesterday I wrapped up work on my new book on Structured Writing and delivered it to the publisher. There will be more work to do, of course, after the pre-publication review process is complete, but in a broad sense, the book is done. That is, the arc of the book is complete. Good books have… Read More »
Following my recent STC Webinar on Every Page is Page One, an attendee wrote to ask about the discipline of linking. Unfortunately, that email mysteriously vanished from my inbox before I could answer personally, so, whoever asked, I hope you see the answer here. Linking is important to Every Page is Page One and to a bottom-up… Read More »
Does a bottom-up information architecture improve search ranking? This is another in a series responding to questions from my TC Dojo series on Bottom-up Information Architecture. I have several questions from the second session on writing, but I’m still working off the backlog of questions from the first session on organization. (Because we are moving… Read More »
Once the reader reaches an Every Page is Page One page, does it still matter if the site is well organized? It depends on what you mean by “organized”. This is another in the series of post dealing with questions from my TC Dojo Webinar on bottom-up information architecture. Q: I understand that the site… Read More »
I got a number of really good questions following my TC Dojo session on Bottom-up Information Architecture (below). I want to address the questions in a little more depth than was possible in the webinar. Q: I’ve attended multiple Every Page is Page One webinars. They get bogged down in theory but never explain what tasks… Read More »
One of the principles of Every Page is Page One information design is that an EPPO topic conforms to a type. But I have come to think that that formulation is not quite right. It should really be, an Every Page is Page One topic conforms to a topic pattern. The difference between type and pattern… Read More »
In communication, they say, context is everything. Actually, “everything” consists of context and subject. Useful information is subject in context. The question is, which comes first: context or subject? In the book era, the content search pattern was: context first, subject afterwards. That is, suppose you deliver three different products and have released three different versions of… 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: Safari Flow represents a move to Every Page is Page One navigation for books, but its success is limited when the content is not written in Every Page is Page One style. At Tom Johnson’s suggestion, I have recently subscribed to Safari Flow. Safari Flow is a new take on the Safari Books Online… Read More »
Much of the time we spend with technical documentation is concerned with wayfinding. That is, it is not about performing the actual operation, but about finding which operation to perform, and finding the piece of content that describes the operation in a form that we can understand. Note that there are two distinct components to… Read More »