Pattern recognition for tech comm as STC webinar

If you’ve missed my session on “Pattern Recognition for Technical Communicators” at the STC Summit in Chicago, you now have another chance: On Wednesday, 8 August at 1 pm EDT / 7 pm CEST, I’ll be presenting the session as a live webinar.

Session abstract

Pattern recognition is an essential mental strategy for acquiring and disseminating knowledge, though most of us are not aware of it. When applied consciously, technical communicators can employ pattern recognition processes to develop effective documentation more efficiently and help readers orient themselves.

Learn what pattern recognition is and how it works, what pattern recognition strategies you may already be employing without even knowing it, and how you can employe those strategies to efficiently acquire information, structure documentation, and support users to:

• Make sense of new subject matter
• Start to build new documentation
• Design and structure documentation
• Support users efficiently

What attendees said

Attendees at the STC Summit came away with these insights (according to session evaluations):

• “Pattern recognition can help chunk topics, find reuse opportunities, & help your reader navigate.”
• “The session confirmed what I believe is needed, in that users want to know what to expect in each chapter, or book, that that is done by applying pattern recognition. I just didn’t have a term for it before.”
• “Classifying TOC as top down, search/index as bottom up, combining the two to find a balanced form of communication.”

Sign up

You can sign up for the webinar at the STC web site. See you on the 8th! (Well, not really – but we’ll be able to hear each other… 🙂 )

P.S. This will be my second webinar – and I’ll be sure to take the lessons and suggestions from my first one to heart!

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Improve tech comm by knowing a foreign language

Knowing a second language can help your tech comm work in a couple of ways. The benefit is probably not great enough in itself to justify learning a language, but if you have or had other reasons, it’s worth to consider these side benefits.

Making decisions in a foreign language

I got to think about this when I read a story in Wired that “thinking in a second language reduced deep-seated, misleading biases”. Psychologists at the University of Chicago conducted a study (abstract, full text in PDF) that asked “Would you make the same decisions in a foreign language as you would in your native tongue?”

In a foreign language, we use the same experiences and processes to evaluate situations and estimate risks. However, “a foreign language is like a distancing mechanism. It’s almost like you’re a slightly different person,” says Boaz Keysar who led the study (Business Week). According to the study, thinking in a non-native language emphasizes the systematic, analytical reasoning process. Thinking in our native tongue, on the other hand, leaves more room for the complementary intuitive, emotional decision process: “The researchers believe a second language provides a useful cognitive distance from automatic processes, promoting analytical thought and reducing unthinking, emotional reaction” (Wired). (Whether an analytical process yields “better” decisions is an entirely different story…)

Making tech comm better with a foreign language

For the past 12 years that I’ve worked full-time as a tech writer, I’ve written almost exclusively in my second language English, though I did occasionally translate my English writing into my native German. The study’s conclusion that a second language provides a “useful cognitive distance … promoting analytical thought” explains what I’ve experienced in my work in either language, beyond the limits of actual study:

1. A second chance to learn how language works. Many writers I’ve talked to have a solid grasp of their native tongue, but cannot necessarily explain the rules why something is right or wrong. When you learn a second language consciously, you also learn about grammar (again), its powers and limitations. And you can understand how something what works in one language can be similar or even different in another. For me, writing in English certainly made me a more conscientious “grammarian” in either language.

2. Mirroring the “distance” of users. In my experience, the distance that a second language brings is basically pragmatic incompetence: In a foreign language, I’m not as fully aware of the social context, of how time, space and inferred intent contribute to any communication act. I may trip over an idiom I don’t understand, or I may fail to see the irony of a statement and take it at face value.

In tech comm, this linguistic challenge is actually a benefit, because many of my readers share in that distancing experience. My readers may read my documentation in their second language. Or they might use the product in a context and for a purpose that is more or less different than intended and documented. This is why localization is harder than just translation. Internationalization can even become an accessibility issue, when a product no longer works properly in a certain context. So facing similar pragmatic uncertainties makes me a better advocate of the users I write for.

Your turn

If you know a second language, do you find it helps your writing? Do you have other reasons or benefits beside the ones I listed?

What I learned from my pattern recognition talk at STC12

My session on pattern recognition for technical communicators was a very rewarding experience which taught me a lot. I thank Paul Mueller, Conference Manager, and Alyssa Fox, Program Committee Chair, for inviting me to speak, even though this was my first summit. Their friendly, indefatigable support set the tone for a high-energy, well-run conference.

If you want to revisit the session, here are the slides and the article from the proceedings. (If you haven’t attended the session, the article will probably be more helpful, for reasons explained below.)

Here’s a look behind the scenes of my talk and what I learned:

Two different roles

Attending a conference is not the same as speaking at one. Well, duh…

But what I mean is this: I took care to be an observant attendee before my own session, so I could gauge expectations and behaviors of attendees. Bluntly put: As attendee, I want my money’s worth. As speaker, I need to give my audience their money’s worth. Observing and knowing the first helped me achieve the second – or so I hope.

When I was still in academia, I was often put off by conference presenters whose ignorance of the audience’s interests and demands could be quite arrogant – and usually didn’t help the conference as a whole, either. So I wanted to avoid that.

Plus, one of the mantras of technical communicators is: “Know your audience!” How could I afford to ignore it at a tech comm conference?

“Unusual” works

I was unsure about my topic, because it was a bit unusual and off-the-wall: Tying the psychology of perception to technical communications – only to confirm what we do anyway, such as topic-based authoring and parallelism?

(Photo courtesy of Jamie Gillenwater)

On the other hand, I know from attending previous conferences, how much I enjoyed and benefitted from such sessions. A-ha moments are fun and enlightening, they work in TV science programs, so maybe they’ll work at a conference as well…

During the session, I was too busy to count heads, but I’m guessing I might have had an audience of 70 people maybe. There were other sessions to choose from. Or breakfast, since I was in the 8:30 slot. So I decided early on to get over my worries and trust in the general curiosity of tech writers. 🙂

Rehearsing pays

So practicing helps… Again: Well, duh…

Specifically, it allowed me to move beyond bullet points. I’ve seen many a session (less so at the summit) where presenters mainly read their slides. To me, those are usually not the best presentations. I don’t need great showmanship, but reading the slides seems as if the speaker serves the slides rather than vice versa.

I’ve tried to make at least the a-ha moments less reliant on words and bullet lists and more like an illustrated story. And I’ve found that decent images will remind me of the story just fine. (The last section about actually applying pattern recognition in tech comm has more bullet lists, so people could take notes.)

In addition, I found that rehearsing also helps me to “know time” (a pet obsession of mine; I even have a blog post about it). I’ve seen excellent presentations, but it peeves me a bit if they take up 58 of 60 minutes. I also learn by asking questions and by engaging with the speaker or others in the audience. And to me, it seems a bit careless to mar an excellent session by running overtime.

Budget your energy

I am really glad (and almost a little proud) that we’ve had such a lively, engaging discussion after my presentation. People suggested additional sources, propped up some of my arguments and ran with others, bringing up evolution, Edward Tufte’s information graphics and – privately afterwards – even Immanuel Kant!

My one regret is that by that time I was a bit exhausted and didn’t always do justice when repeating the question or comment for everybody in the room and for the recording. Not sure how I can achieve it, but I want to save not only time, but also energy to facilitate the discussion afterwards.

But all in all I think the session went well, I’ve really enjoyed the experience and am glad to contibute to our curious, friendly and supportive tech comm community!

Pattern recognition for tech comm at #TCUK11

Our presentation “Pattern recognition for technical communicators” by Chris Atherton and myself at TCUK11 was well-received and brought “Ah-ha moments a-go-go” according to one tweet. Read how it went or download the slides in PDF by clicking on the title image.

How the session came about

The session (see the abstract) got its start when I met Chris at last year’s TCUK where she spoke about “Everything you always wanted to know about psychology (and how it relates to technical communication) … but were afraid to ask”. She didn’t really talk about pattern recognition, and I didn’t really know what it was, but I had a notion this might be good for another presentation. I contacted Chris, she thought it was a great idea, and so over the year, we came up with this baby.

"Only Chris Atherton can have a picture of a dog's bum in her #TCUK11 presentation and make it relevant." - @robocolumn

And we brought the baby to TCUK11. 24 hours before our talk, Chris and I attended Karen Mardahl‘s and CJ Walker‘s fireside chat-like session “Content strategy year 1: a tale from the trenches“.  Their dialogue format really appealed to us, we decided to replace some of the scripted moments with more informal dialogue – and the baby had two godmothers.

Then we attended Andrew Lightheart‘s “How to be a riveting speaker” (more on that in my previous post) after which we couldn’t very well present something with reams of text-ridden slides. So we threw out most of the text slides – and the baby had a godfather.

By now, it was still the same content, but quite a different presentation. After all the tweaking, we didn’t have a measurement whether it filled the allotted 40 minutes or was longer…

How it went, a view from the lectern

Chris and I met in the auditorium, set up, added some last minute changes. Checking the watch: 2 minutes to go. Looking up: We had filled the place, a good 100 people were keen to recognise a pattern or two…

Karen introduced us, and off we went. I had decided to be extranervous because the session was being filmed and preserved (is my collar right?) – but I completely forgot!

"By creating and following patterns you help your reader understand..." - @dfarb

Through all the changes and tweaks, we had come to know the material so intimately that it seemed to flow quite smoothly. The omitted text slides were actually a relief, because we could focus on the story and the examples, without having to vindicate each and every sentence. We had picked out stories and examples which were easier to tell than some of the concepts we had thrown out.

Karen’s warning of 15 minutes left came around the time I had roughly estimated. We had to leave out the communal brainstorm of more examples and applications, but everything else fit in.

The feedback after the session was very kind and encouraging. I’m glad and proud if we presented something meaningful to our peers.

The slides

The slides are not the actual presentation we showed, but a variation with more text, so they work a little better as a self-contained slide show without the soundtrack.  Click on the image above to display or download. The video by the TCUK crew is forthcoming.

Chris and I sincerely thank the TCUK organisers for inviting us, our peer presenters for valuable inspiration, all attendees for helpful feedback, intentional or not, before and after the session!

Feel free to leave a comment, whether you were there or are merely curious what it’s all about!

Join us for pattern recognition at TCUK

Dr. Chris Atherton and I will be premiering our exciting interdisciplinary presentation on “Pattern recognition for technical communicators” at the TCUK conference near Oxford next week. You can find the session abstract on the conference web site or review my previous post.

Join us for a fun whirlwind tour through human perception and find out how you can apply pattern recognition:

• Make sense of unknown subject matter
• Overcome tech writer’s block and start writing
• Chunk topics and find reuse opportunities
• Help your readers to
• Orient themselves in your documentation
• Grasp individual topics quickly
• Get the most out of navigation aids

Extra bonus! You’ll learn about apophenia, a concept that gives you something to talk about at cocktail parties and ranks high on most international geek scales… 😉

No previous experience required! If you’re at the conference and can get yourself into the right room on Thursday, September 22, at 10 o’clock, you have all the tools on-board that you need!

Next week I’ll be blogging from the conference, so watch this space…

Pattern recognition for tech comm

Chris Atherton and I will present a session on pattern recognition for technical communicators at this year’s Technical Communication UK conference near Oxford. The conference takes place from September 20 through 22.

Adding up Chris’s interest in evidence-based information design and her background in researching and teaching human cognition with my experience in designing and modelling technical communications, we’re sure it’ll be an interesting, thought-provoking session. Here’s the abstract:

Pattern recognition is one of the essential mental strategies for acquiring and disseminating knowledge, though most of us are not aware of it. This session presents some ideas and findings about human pattern recognition. It aims to help technical communicators think about how they can employ pattern recognition processes to develop their own documentation and user assistance.

The presentation combines the wit and wisdom of a cognitive psychologist and a technical writer who draw on examples and evidence in their respective fields to show:

• What pattern recognition is and how it works
• Which mental strategies we employ without knowing it
• How technical communicators can employ those strategies
• Making sense of new subject matter
• Starting to build new documentation
• Designing and structuring documentation
• Supporting users efficiently

New conference trend: Collaborative sessions

It’s interesting to see collaborations appear at the conference that create a mushroom-like network of sessions:

• Chris and I talk about pattern recognition.
• Chris leads a session with Mike Smith and Karen Mardahl on statistics (without maths).
• Karen joins forces with CJ Walker to tell about content strategy from the trenches.

Do you think joint sessions are a good idea or not? Have you had bad experiences that we should avoid? Feel free to leave a comment.