Usable Help

A lovely web front-end

Sun, 6 May 2012 12:54:00 -0500

As you may know, the Stack Overflow website is emarkably popular among programmers for interacting with and obtaining help from their peers. It's a fine example of collaborative knowledge sharing. Its UI is fast and minimalist, but with over 3 million questions in the database (each of which might have many answers) there is an overwhelming amount of information to wade through.

A new iPad app, StackTrace, provides a lovely and efficient front-end to the site. In addition to optimized browsing and searching, it features a very visually appealing interface for keeping track of favorite topics. See the write-up at Beautiful Pixels for more discussion about its design.

Could the techniques of StackTrace be applied to your online documentation? Also, while you're browsing Stack Overflow, check out the badges that participants earn and how these might be applied to the gamification of documentation.

Improved Help authoring with Voodoo Pad

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 14:39:00 -0500

The latest version of Voodoo Pad for Mac adds several new features that are particularly relevant to Help authoring. In addition to the existing iOS webapp export, you can now create an ePub book suitable for iBooks, Nook, or other e-readers. Web export has been improved, and you can now define "collections" that specify which pages are exported and their relationship. Additionally, collaborative authoring is now supported via Dropbox. All in all, Voodoo Pad remains a great way to author onscreen Help for teams that aren't already using a content management system.

Customers use social media, not documentation

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 15:49:00 -0500

MacWorld summarizes a U.K. study that found, among computer users of a certain age group, the first thing they do after experiencing a problem with a product is complain about it on social media. The article also offers several other interesting findings and tips for how companies can best monitor for customer trouble reports on Twitter.

It has long been held that using documentation to solve a problem is the last resort, but now it seems we've down another notch.

Dealing with documentation overload

Sun, 15 Apr 2012 14:35:00 -0500

Dov Frankel describes how retaining all of the instruction manuals for his devices finally drove him to develop a new approach to managing the mountain of paper. The Great Instruction Manual Adventure succinctly describes his paperless solution. Isn't it nice to hear of a customer who wants to keep your doc?

Snapguide puts user-contributed Help in your pocket.

Thu, 5 Apr 2012 18:23:00 -0500

Snapguide is getting a lot press this week as a new, and darling, iOS app. In a nutshell, it takes user-created content to a new height and already features hundreds of "how-tos" on a myriad of topics. For example, see the tutorial about how to make Easter egg pops.

Matthew Ingram, writing for Gigaom observes:

"Like most people, I hardly ever turn to how-to guides unless I am completely stuck — and then I usually just Google the term I am looking for (faucet dripping, etc.) and then click through whatever looks good and try to memorize the key steps. The nice thing about Snapguide isn’t just that the guides have photos and videos included, so that you can see exactly how to do something (the guide on catching Dungeness crabs is quite good) but it is really well designed for the phone and tablet. I could see myself holding the app on my iPhone or iPad — or having someone else hold it — while I try to execute whatever maneuver I am working on, or prepare a recipe for something complicated."

Is your product documented on Snapguide? The answers might be "it will be."

Gamifying Help

Sun, 1 Apr 2012 11:06:00 -0500

Getting Smart's Badges Will Be Big predicts that achievement awards are the Next Big Thing for learning.

As noted in Read the Help, Increase Your Score, giving positive reinforcement for reading the documentation might encourage users to at least open an app's Help.

Help as on outboard brain

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 11:12:00 -0500

A new psychology study, Google Effects on Memory: Cognitive Consequences of Having Information at Our Fingertips, discusses the effect of having constant access to information. When faced with difficult questions, people are becoming primed to think about looking up the information, instead of remembering it. In the words of the authors, "the Internet has become a primary form of external or transactive memory, where information is stored collectively outside ourselves."

Perhaps the goal of documentation, then, is not to teach users how to use a product. It's to provide a resource where information can be quickly located and recalled when it is needed. This would be a subtle but important paradigm shift for many technical writers.

PDF: Dead format walking

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 15:46:00 -0500

Teleread succinctly summarizes why the reign of PDF as an onscreen document format is over.

New ways to read Usable Help

Sat, 10 Mar 2012 15:30:00 -0500

Later this year, Usable Help will celebrate its 10th anniversary. In preparation for the big event, I've added new ways to keep up with the blog. You can now like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, circle us on Google+, or subscribe via email. Additionally, our RSS feed now includes the full text of every post.

No matter which method you choose, or even if you just keep visiting the website, you won't miss a thing. Thanks for the support and encouragement to make these enhancements, and for reading.

When ebooks become books

Sat, 10 Mar 2012 11:10:00 -0500

Todd Sattersten, writing The Paperless Book for O'Reilly Radar, provides many interesting thoughts and links. How much longer will it be that electronic publications are simply "books," and no longer need an "e-" qualifier to distinguish them from their printed counterparts? Also worth reading and thinking about are the implications and consequences of book updates.