STC13: User Assistance, Tech Comm, and Learning

The session “User Assistance, Tech Comm, and Learning” brought together four seasoned professionals to discuss common grounds between tech comm and e-learning: Nicky Bleiel, who moderated, Kevin Siegel, Saul Carliner, and Matt Sullivan. (This is part of my coverage of the STC Summit 2013 in Atlanta.)

The panel, moderated by Nicky Bleiel. Photo by @viqui_dill.

Saul’s opening statement pointed out important differences between tech comm and training:

• Tech comm doesn’t aim at information retention, but training does.
• Tech comm’ers mainly create content, but trainers mainly teach, whether online or “in real life”.

Yet there are large overlaps between the disciplines and their practice, especially in “informal learning”, specifically, in the purpose, the content, and the consumer’s awareness of learning.

Kevin added further common values and features which both share:

• Brevity in topics, in e-learning lessons (typically less than 5 minutes), or in a video (less than 2 minutes)
• Step-by-step instructions in task topics and lessons
• Direct address of the user as “you”

Matt explained how he focused on pragmatic information delivery where his single-sourcing workflow almost automatically combines “teaching and telling” in documents.

In the discussion that followed, the panelists addressed further aspects of that intersection of tech comm and training:

• By emphasizing user action and tasks over functionality descriptions, you can offer resourceful users interactions and showing and telling to mix and match. However, exactly targeting your audience always precisely is usually not possible (neither in training nor in tech comm), so resist the temptation to “helicopter-parent” your learners.
• That intersection works well with thought-through minimalism (which is not the same as writing in a concise manner).
• Selecting the right channel and format can benefit both purposes, tech comm and training, tremendously, whether you choose videos or interactions or text.
• Sample projects can be helpful to support and illustrate both,  learning and, to a lesser extent, documentation. They can be used as templates for a quick start to explore user scenarios. Personas are a great idea, too, but they’re of limited value as long as they don’t support the person(a)’s task.

In closing, the panelists pointed out that the focus of tech comm and e-learning alike is on people, not theories, methods or tools. In either domain, all users are different and many are extrinsically motivated by policy, law or certification to learn. So make it easy on them and keep them moving along swiftly.

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STC13: David Pogue’s keynote spech

David Pogue, technology columnist for the New York Times, kicked off the STC Summit 2013 with his keynote. He looked back to his previous keynote at the 2009 summit and forward to what future developments in technology and materials science might bring. (This is part of my coverage of the STC Summit 2013 in Atlanta.)

Alan Houser, President of the STC, introduced him as the “most publicly visible technical communicator on the planet”. David started with a recap of his earlier address. He explained (again) how up to 2009, the acceleration in technological developments had led to a challenge and a paradox. The challenge concerns hardware where machines have become smaller and smaller, while our means to operate them, namely our fingers, have remained essentially the same size. The paradox occurs in software where companies often justify the most recent upgrade by piling on yet more new features – without necessarily having a good place to put them.

David Pogue delivering the keynote speech at the STC Summit 2013. Photo by Nitza Hauser.

Out of this challenge and this paradox comes the unexpected situation where a company such as Apple can achieve a competitive advantage by successfully eliminating features in a device such as the iPod. This cult of simplicity sells, and the product or service with fewer buttons win, whether it’s an iPad or the Google start search screen.

The reason why this works is psychological, says David: Achievements give us joy and make us feel that, yes, I can do this, and for this, I’m a good person. Conversely, not understanding how stuff or works or why stuff is so weird terrifies us.

Which brought David to Windows 8 and his task to write book for his “Missing Manual” series about the operating system. David made it clear that he appreciates much about Windows 8 – however, there are certain features that drive him crazy because they task him with documenting something that makes no sense – a feeling many tech comm’ers know well.

Specifically, Windows 8 presents two versions of many applications, two browsers, two e-mail clients, etc. – one in the GUI with tiles and one in the regular desktop. In the tiles GUI, there are no folders or files – and the control panel with system settings is only available via search.

Okay, so David decided to document the two GUIs in two separate parts of his book. Which raised the question how you call each GUI. The desktop is the desktop. But what is the GUI with tiles called? It started out as “Metro” until a German retail chain of the same name threaten to sue Microsoft. The “Modern UI” moniker was internal Microsoft lingo only. So David asked Microsoft directly. The GUI with tiles it turns out is called – “Windows 8”! As is the operating system in which the GUI with tiles and the desktop both live…

This didn’t make sense to David, so he invented the name “TileWorld” – and the name stuck! (… it does sound like a DIY store for bathrooms to me…)

David thought the main issue was the decision to combine the two GUIs. The common desktop is a more cumbersome but runs all applications and is known to most Windows users today. “TileWorld” has its advantages in a mobile tablet world, but is unsuitable for many uses such as drawing, spreadsheets, word processing, etc. – all these don’t work well with gestures on a large touchscreen on the desk in front of you.

The takeaway lesson David shared was: Terminology should be for clarity and to serve the reader.”

David ended his keynote to rousing applause as he regaled us to his very own version of the show tune “I Feel Pretty”, “Im On Twitter”.