Examining documentation and help systems since 2002.
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Gordon R. Meyer
Copyright 2002-2010
Words cannot be divorced from design
“Great interfaces are written...Good writing is good design.” These are the only two snippets you need to see from Copywriting is Interface Design to know that you, as a technical writer, must go read the whole article. Now.
Posted: March 13, 2010 link to this item, respond to this item
Frame your iPhone screenshots
Fabian Kreiser's iPhone Screentaker is a Mac utility for easily framing screenshots of iPhone programs within what appears to be an actual iPhone. The results are great for product web pages, the App Store, and also for documentation.
Posted: March 4, 2010 link to this item, respond to this item
Developing a useful style guide
Once a technical writing group exceeds more than a handful of team members, a style guide becomes essential. When it's time to develop one of your own, take a peek at Klariti's guidelines for finding, or creating, a style guide that covers the essentials.
See also: Apple Publications Style Guide 2008.
Posted: February 25, 2010 link to this item, respond to this item
Quick! Help!
Cherryleaf writes about using QR Codes to deliver Help. These scannable bar codes are gaining popularity with mobile phone users, and might present an opportunity for easily providing help and documentation resources in unusual locations or circumstances.
Posted: February 21, 2010 link to this item, respond to this item
RubyFrontier, a tool for HTML Help
RubyFrontier is a system for generating and maintaining web sites, created by technical writer Matt Neuburg specifically for the task of writing HTML-based onscreen help. Neuberg demonstrates the tool with a screencast in which he implements a help book for Apple Help, too. The tool is free and, being written in Ruby, cross-platform. See the RubyFrontier website for more information.
See also: An Apple Help Case Study and Implementing Apple Help Screencast.
Posted: January 17, 2010 link to this item, respond to this item
Gallery of iPhone Help
I've added a new "wing" to the Gallery of Onscreen Help. This addition debuts with 335 screen shots showing sample implementations of onscreen help in iPhone applications. I hope you find it as useful as the established gallery, which I know is often utilized by instructional and graphic designers when designing new help systems. Visit the Gallery of iPhone Help.
Posted: January 2, 2010 link to this item, respond to this item
Sometimes marketing is right
I recently purchased an inexpensive, imported "Thermometer Digital" (sic) and I was struck by how perfectly the packaging and documentation illustrated the gulf between marketing and instructional design.
Above you see the back panel of the box. It provides instructions on how to use the device and they allowed me to accomplish my task very quickly. On the left, is just one section from the user manual I found inside the box. The portion shown is the same information as given on the box, but clearly written from a different perspective. Thank heavens they had someone else write the box copy.
Posted: December 23, 2009 link to this item, respond to this item
Instruction manuals for criminals
A Chicago man who was recently arrested for burglarizing an automobile was discovered to have a self-written "how to guide" for breaking into vehicles. Among the tips in the book were exhortations to be vigilant and listen for squealing tires, which might indicate approaching police cruisers. A story in the Chicago Sun-Times does not indicate if the book is an early draft of the latest David Pogue "Missing Manual" publication.
Posted: December 19, 2009 link to this item, respond to this item
Do cookbooks teach you how to cook?
Writing Why We Use Cookbooks for the New Yorker, Adam Gopnik wonders about the efficacy, as well as hidden agendas, of the cookbook industry.
Asking the same questions of your own instructional material will be illuminating.
Posted: December 14, 2009 link to this item, respond to this item
Better iPhone tutorial movies
Atebits, developer of the popular iPhone Twitter client Tweetie, has posted best practices and utilities for making better movies of iPhone applications for demonstration or instructional purposes. See Not Your Average iPhone Screencast for all the details.
Posted: November 30, 2009 link to this item, respond to this item
User testing can be a waste of time
In my experience, user testing can be helpful if you're trying to break new ground and just want a quick gut-check on the interaction design. But the desire to run "extensive user testing" as a way to "prove" something is really not at all productive or conclusive. I think you can find all the major problems in a single day, with a handful of test subjects, and that ultimately you have to trust your professional instincts anyway. This seems to jive with the opinion offered in The Myth of Usability Testing.
Posted: November 25, 2009 link to this item, respond to this item
Help as a polishing step
Programmer Ross Carter observes that writing onscreen Help before releasing a beta product to testers can result in a high level of polish, because writing documentation provides a new perspective that uncovers bugs and improvement opportunities. More so, I'll add, if the documentation is written by someone other than the software's designer or engineer.
Posted: November 11, 2009 link to this item, respond to this item