What do you want to learn in January?

Joe Welinske, president of WritersUA,? is presenting at our January meeting (details are still being worked out). He’s offered several topics to cover, so vote for the topic that interests you the most.

Vote now for the January topic!

About the topics

An Overview of Trends, Tools, and Technologies in Software User Assistance

The application of technical communication skills to the development of software user assistance has grown immensely in the past twenty years. This specialization is very fulfilling and challenging and technical communicators are finding their role in the software development process to be increasingly valued. User assistance is much more than “Help.” It encompasses a wide range of skills and technologies that are combined to improve the software user’s experience. We contribute through wizards, tutorials, and web-based training. We develop and populate knowledge bases and content management systems. Printed manuals and their PDF equivalents are still an important element of our documentation sets.

Many of us are now embedding helpful content directly into the user interface. We are involved with usability testing, localization, testing, quality assurance, and branding. This presentation provides a cutting-edge overview of the latest trends in software user assistance, defines the key terminology, highlights the most important technologies, and offers predictions on future directions of our field. The seventy-five minute session should be of interest to technical communicators of all backgrounds and experience levels.

Write More, Write Less: Embracing the value of crafted words and images.

While the word “content” is a good shorthand for words, audio, and images, it unfortunately can move us farther away from the core competency of developing good information. The theme of this presentation is that documentation teams are often spending too little time writing well; and at the same time spending too much time writing little-used information. Research and professional observation suggest that not enough time is being put into crafting text to be exactly the right text for a particular context. And writing resources for doing “agile” user assistance would be more readily available if writers would prioritize topic writing based on user need. “Writing More” while “Writing Less” can result in better utility for users and can reduce the need and load on the overall documentation development process and content management. Technical Communicators of all backgrounds will benefit from this thought-provoking presentation.

UA Design and Implementation for iPhone Apps

The iPhone application development market has exploded since Apple opened the App store. Apple recently celebrated the one millionth application developed for their mobile platform. For UA developers this represents a new market for our services. It is also an area with numerous challenges in uncharted waters.

All mobile apps can benefit from improved UI text. Word choices are extremely important with minimal screen real estate. What words and phrases are best for optimal communication.

While many, if not most, mobile apps are fairly simplistic, there is a rapidly growing list of application with relatively robust capabilities. Micro-concise instructions regarding difficult concepts can significantly improve a users initial experience with the mobile app.

Many of the more robust apps work in concert with web-based applications and knowledgebases. How do you best integrate content displayed on a desktop or laptop with that of the mobile app.

In this session, you?ll learn how these issues were handled in several iPhone application projects by the presenter as part of ongoing UA consulting in the mobile space.

Vote now for the January topic!