No wonder the world has a plastic problem

On Saturday, I bought three small — and cheap — items from a big-name department store and a hardware store. Each came in packaging that wasn’t warranted, even if the price of each item had been much higher.

Exhibit 1: The watch

The first item was a watch. I no longer buy expensive watches — a $10 to $20 watch does just fine at telling the time. As I work from home, I only wear a watch occasionally, so spending big bucks on a watch seems silly. My last $10 watch lasted me a couple of years, but it died recently — the battery went and the band was on its last legs. At $10 for the purchase, it just wasn’t worth fixing — a new battery and band and the fitting of both would cost upwards of $40, so I decided to replace it with another $10 watch from Big W (like Target, Wal-Mart etc. in the US).

Here’s how my watch was packaged:

Yes, this $10 watch was inside a sealed plastic clam shell.

But wait… there’s more…

Inside this triangular piece of plastic that was almost impossible to cut open without cutting yourself in the process, was a hard plastic display holder, around which were TWO tightly strapped cable ties holding the watch. And notice the square thing underneath the hard plastic bit? That’s an RF security tag!

What were they thinking? That these watches (at <$10) were so darned precious that they needed this sort of protection?

After I got everything cut open and pulled apart (a process that took several minutes, a lot of frustration, a few expletives, and a pair of scissors), I was left with this:

I only wanted a watch, not a small landfill’s worth of plastic!! Had I thought about, I should have opened the package in the store after paying for it, and handed the packaging back to Big W. If more customers did that, maybe these stores would get the hint that all this over-packaging is totally unnecessary… especially for low-priced items such as this.

I suspect that if I bought a Cartier watch in a jewellery store, it would come with less unnecessary packaging. And I also suspect that all this packaging added about $2 to the cost of this already cheap watch.

Oh, and my husband got cut by this outer plastic when he was sorting our recyclable trash… he wasn’t happy!

Exhibit 2: The surge protector

Next stop was Bunnings (like Home Depot or Lowes in the US), where I needed to buy a surge protector. It was $4.95, and like the watch, it came in a hard plastic clam shell sealed against ingress by anything nasty, and moulded to suit the shape of the $5 object inside.

I could only open this package with scissors — it sure couldn’t be prised open. And like the watch’s packaging, I had to be careful not to get cut by the sharp edges of the plastic as I cut it open.

I wonder what people with arthritis or limited hand mobility do? This stuff was TOUGH to cut, and once cut, it’s dangerously sharp.

Exhibit 3: The tape

My other purchase at Bunnings was some plumbers’ tape. This one wasn’t as badly packaged as the other two items, but it was still overkill for a $1.99 item!

At least I could get it open without scissors and the risk of cutting myself because the moulded plastic over the tape reel just wrapped around the cardboard and was stapled to it with a single staple. However, notice that the tape reel is inside a plastic ‘doughnut’ ring, which has a plastic top and bottom piece! Though having now used the plumbers’ tape, I think that the ring is necessary as this stuff is really fine and wants to fall off the reel.

*****

Back in the day (meaning a decade or so ago), you could buy things like plumbers’ tape loose from bins in the aisles at Bunnings; they didn’t come on a piece of cardboard with a moulded piece of plastic stapled to them. Likewise for things like surge protectors. Has all this unnecessary packaging come about because customers asked for it? (I doubt it) Or because stores were losing too much to shoplifting and pilfering? (possible) Or because manufacturers now have to have instructions and warnings for EVERYTHING they make, and those instructions and warnings have to be attached to the product? (very likely)

Even if instructions and warnings have to be attached to the item, and the item has to be secured against shoplifting, there are ways to minimize the packaging. For example, the surge protector could be attached to the cardboard warning/instructional material with a cable tie with no other plastic required; likewise the watch and the plumbers’ tape. These sealed clam shell plastic containers are unnecessary for products such as these, and just add to the manufacturing cost and the cost to the environment when it comes time to dispose of them. And nothing I saw on any of the plastic packaging indicated it had been made from recycled materials or that it could be recycled. <grrrr>

Misleading ads from Qantas Frequent Flyer

I’ve been a Qantas Frequent Flyer and Qantas Club Life Member for just over 20 years (yikes!), and so I get their promotional emails, which seem to come with increasing regularity. Most of the time I just delete them, but occasionally one catches my eye, especially when it offers what I perceive to be a ‘very good deal’.

A bit of background… Perth hotel prices are EXORBITANT, and they’ve been ridiculously high for several years. We’re in a resources boom, so hotel room prices mid-week (in particular) are through the roof. To even find a decent hotel offering a room for less than $250 a night is very unusual; it’s more like $400+ a night.

Which is why this Qantas promo for hotel stays caught my eye (I’ve highlighted the relevant bits in yellow):

Note that the price advertised ($179) is based on a stay at Crown Metropol (ex-Burswood Hotel) in Perth. Now, $179 is a good deal for Perth, and Crown is a 5-star hotel. So, $179 for a 5-star hotel in Perth? Gotta click on that!

And here’s what I got:

Yep, that $179 deal has suddenly morphed in a ‘minimum $269′ deal, some $90 more. Thanks, Qantas…

However, the Qantas deal is still cheaper than offers from sites like Wotif.com for the same hotel, where their cheapest deal is $295 for just one night in the coming two weeks:

I guess I won’t be staying overnight in Perth any time soon.

Mental model disconnection

I was looking up a website for a local bathroom renovation company. This image was on all their web pages:

A cooktop and range hood just don’t fit my mental model of a bathroom, so I checked their entire website to see if they did kitchen renovations as well, and found NOTHING to indicate that they do. Their business name clearly states that they do bathroom renovations.

Which leads me to wonder WHY they have an image of a range hood and cooktop on their bathroom renovation site. Did their web designer just grab any image from the internet and plonk it there? Or do they do kitchen renos too, but they’re keeping that service hidden for now? Or did no-one who signed off on the website notice that the image doesn’t match their business name and service offerings?

The problem with this mental model mismatch is that I now don’t trust that this company would take the care required to do a bathroom reno for me (not that I want one now, but that’s not the point). Any trust I may have engendered from looking at their website text and testimonials has been reduced by this cognitive dissonance.

Bottom line: Trust is jeopardized when the images and text (and business name in this case) on your website don’t match. If your prospective customer sees that you can’t get that right, then they won’t trust you to get their job done right either.

Or maybe that’s just me…

Honoring a customer service promise

I was hunting for something on the internet… as you do. One of the potential suppliers didn’t have the exact item I was looking for, so I thought I’d contact them. One of their contact options was ‘live chat’ available ’24/7/365, no waiting’. So I clicked on the link. And got this:

If you’re going to make a statement that someone is available for ‘live chat’ 24/7/365, then honor it. If you can’t honor it, don’t make that promise!

Values need correct units

There was a whole lots of smoke hanging around our region of Western Australia over the weekend, so I went to the Department of Environment and Conservation website to see if there were any prescribed burns that might be causing it. There were. Normally, there’s a small map that shows the approximate location of the burn, and if you click on the title of the burn you get the burn’s details, including a more detailed map.

Well, the small map didn’t show the location, and I couldn’t figure out where the burn might be from its title (‘DON_917 Lindsay 39′ wasn’t very helpful!), so I clicked on the title to get more information and found out that the burn was mapped as occurring in China! It was correctly listed as being close to Manjimup.

I guess someone forgot to add an ‘S’ to the Latitude value, and it defaulted to ‘N’. Or they accidentally selected ‘N’. If it defaulted to ‘N’, that would indicate the software they are using was made in the northern hemisphere, and/or that someone hasn’t set the global setting for latitude for Western Australia to be ‘S’.

Whatever the reason, this map sure wasn’t very useful, especially to people who live close to that area and who might be impacted by a bushfire if it got out of DEC’s control, as has happened before with tragic results.

Flying in infinite loops with Qantas

One of my clients — J — emailed me some pictures detailing his frustrations with the Qantas website when trying to change his company name and phone number details in the Frequent Flyer section. Before I go any further, you should know that J has a PhD, is an Associate Professor at a prestigious university in Australia, is a software designer, has owned a couple of companies etc., so he’s no dumb bunny.

On reading his email and looking at the pictures he sent, I’ve got to assume that whoever designed the web form for Qantas didn’t bother testing it or making sure that what you wanted to do (change your business name, in J’s case) could actually be done. J sure couldn’t do it, and will now have to call Qantas to get his business name and phone number contact details changed.

Here’s what he described to me, and sent pictures of to confirm. I’ve blurred out all J’s identifying information. My comments are italicized in square brackets and prefaced with ‘Rhonda’.

**********

I tried to change my company name on Qantas Frequent Flyer from ABC to XYZ and in the process I had to re-type my phone number and discovered I ended up in an never-ending loop of form filling.

I started out with a form that looks like this:

Qantas does not complain about the state of the form until you change one item – the company name…

[Rhonda: Note: J has four numbers already set before he starts. There are four phone number fields available. Yet the instructions say a maximum of three phone contact numbers. Already there's confusion....]

It didn’t like me entering 4 phone numbers:

[Rhonda: The two error messages above are confusing -- the first error message states you can only enter three numbers, even though there are four fields available, while the second message says that he has to enter an area code for his home phone -- which was already entered under his previous business name!]

So I deleted the home phone and it complained that it must have a home number:

So I deleted the business number, as I only use my mobile anyway and it complains that I need a business number:

I then deleted the alternative number, and it complains that I require an additional number!

This, of course, compels you to type in the number and then you go back to (2) above.

I tried typing in my mobile for my home number with (04) as my area code and it does not like this. At the next house we’re building I don’t intend to have a land line, so what am I to do then?

The result is that I cannot change my company name!

*********

So how does a person change their company name when all other details remain the same, as in J’s case? Obviously, the web form is set up badly in that it assumes because you are changing your company name you must also be changing your phone numbers. There are plenty of small one- or two-person companies like J’s (and mine) where changing the company’s name does NOT mean that you also change your phone numbers. And for Frequent Flyer details, the company name could well change but your personal details won’t change — most companies in Australia allow individuals traveling on company business to keep the Frequent Flyer points for themselves, so even if you work for large companies and change the company name registered with Qantas Frequent Flyer, you shouldn’t be forced into re-entering your phone numbers. Remember, J was doing this in the ‘Personal details’ section, NOT the company details section.

Then there’s the issue of requiring certain numbers. You might not want to have your company phone number associated with your personal details, or your home phone number associated with your company details. But this form wants both, no matter what.

Finally, there’s the issue of people dropping their landline service as smartphones become smarter and as telephone services are more associated with a person than a location. In the US, this isn’t really an issue as geographic area codes are assigned to landlines and mobiles alike, but in Australia we have state-based area codes for landlines and the ubiquitous Australia-wide 04 for the mobile number prefix no matter where you purchased or registered your mobile within Australia — there is NO area code associated with Australian mobile phones (see http://australia.gov.au/about-australia/our-country/telephone-country-and-area-codes). This Qantas form requires area codes for home and business numbers, so I guess someone who only has a mobile and has dropped their landline service should ignore those fields and just enter a mobile number. But wait. They can’t! They get an error message that they MUST enter a home number and a business number (see the images above).

And then they are locked into an infinite loop-de-loop with Qantas…

How could Qantas fix this form? I’ve got several suggestions:

• Don’t force the user to re-enter their phone number details if they have changed their company name. Show the phone details section after changing the name, but don’t force them to do anything on it.
• Make it mandatory to supply a minimum of ONE phone number only, and DON’T specify what type of number (home, business, mobile) it should be.
• All other phone number types should be optional to the maximum number of phone fields on the form (i.e. four).
• An area code should only be required if the user enters an 8-digit Australian landline phone number in the Number field.
• The Number field should be able to take the full 10 digits of an Australian mobile number, no matter what type of phone number you are entering.
• 04 should be acceptable in the Area Code field for any number type if entered along with the remaining eight digits of a mobile number.

[Link last checked April 2013]

I have to do what?

Sometimes things just work and you get a good feeling from the website — as though the owners cared enough about their customers to take the time to make the user experience friendly and useful (see yesterday’s post: http://cybertext.wordpress.com/2013/03/26/thoughtful-and-useful-response-to-a-web-form/).

Then on other days you get something like this:

I have to press ‘Cancel’ on the next screen to view the offer? What the…?

You know what the worst of it was? There was NO ‘Cancel’ button AT ALL on the next screen. And you had no choice but to click OK here and get taken to the offers screen… the one you couldn’t cancel out of.

Then there’s the odd mix of sentence and title case… and the Warning symbol…

Talk about frustrating!

Thoughtful and useful response to a web form

I used the ‘Contact us’ form on Rosenfeld Media’s website, and got this as soon as I clicked the Submit button:

Within seconds I had my email too.

Nice. And useful. Too many times you have no record of what you wrote on a web form, unless you had the presence of mind to copy/paste it into another application before clicking Submit.

WritersUA Conference: Day 2: 8 March 2013

The second and final day of the WritersUA conference started with breakfast at 8:00am and the first of nine sessions at 8:30am. As for yesterday, I’ll summarize MY opinions on the talks I heard today.

Controlling the formatting of EPUB files

Robert Desprez’ session was my first of the day. He confirmed that EPUB creation was much easier today than it was only two years ago. Recent versions of Help Authoring Tools (HATs), such as RoboHelp 10, can do the whole process. One of the disadvantages of EPUBs is that the consumer has to have eReader software of some sort installed on their device, and different eReader software renders the file differently.

There are two ways to revise an EPUB file: do it in the HAT used to create it, or use the HAT to create, then unzip the package and modify CSS files etc. directly. He opts for the second options as HATs only go so far in modifying files.

The anatomy of an EPUB file: Mimetype file (don’t touch); META-INF folder (XML container file; don’t touch); OEPBS folder (this is where most of the stuff is and where you may want to modify settings; e.g. CSS, OPF, manifest; _TOC_NCX, etc.).

Text reflow is based on the device, and can be odd; however, there are things you can do in the CSS etc. post-processing that can alleviate some of the odd reflow behavior and make the EPUB display as you want it to display. The areas he focused on were:

• Embedding fonts: Download fonts to a folder in the EPUB directory, declare the font in the CSS, change the contents of the OPF file to add the font.
• Aligning text: Can use CSS, but eReader may not recognize this setting (e.g. iPad default setting will override CSS); possible solutions: tell users to change the default iPad setting, or author can add <span> tags.
• Controlling page breaks: Do in CSS. Can control page breaks for tables too, but not useful for long tables, only short ones to avoid splitting table onto a new page.
• Controlling widows and orphans: CSS setting works in some eReaders, but not all. Cannot do in the HAT. CSS: p{widows:2;}, p{orphans:2;} where ’2′ in the number of lines at least.
• Adding images: Do in the HAT if you can, and change % sizing in the HAT in preference to CSS.
• Tables: Effective width of entire table is 530px for decent display.
• Fixed layout EPUBs: Can give you exact control over presentation (e.g. instructions one side, image on the other); not aware of any HAT that does this out of the box; Lynda.com has good videos on fixed layout EPUBs.

After finish modifying, sequence for rezipping files is important otherwise it can all go pear-shaped:

1. Create empty zip file.
2. Drag folders/files into empty zip file.
3. Change the zip file’s extension to EPUB.

Validate the EPUB file — various tools for doing this; e.g. Google’s EPUB checker, Robohelp.

Preview the EPUB file: Robert’s website/blog has details on doing this on the iPad (see http://www.robertdesprez.com/).

This was a really comprehensive overview in 35 minutes, and I got a lot out of his talk. Hamish — this is for you! ;-)

Effective techniques for supporting customers with video tutorials

Andrea Perry from TechSmith was next. My notes:

• Video can provide an alternative to text, with content that is fun and engaging.
• “Vision trumps all the other senses” (sorry, I didn’t catch the author of the quote).
• Visuals include screenshots, screen casts, and sketches.
• Content is NOT synonymous with text, or with visuals, or anything else: Content is IDEAS.
• Document/demo the experience/tell the story, not the feature.
• Use video to share the experience.

Best practices:

• Audience: attention span 2 to 5.5 minutes; internet connection speed; quality of video/audio; viewing device; end goal; if for a wide audience, then make it more formal and use better equipment
• Size: It’s safer to make the video larger (min 720px) than smaller, as a large video will rescale to a small device, but a small one won’t rescale well to a large device
• Script and storyboard the video first.
• Don’t be afraid of your own voice.
• Start on a low-stakes project.
• Users like continuity — keep the same narrator and consistent branding to build trust.

Voice Help

Joe Welinske talked about voice commands and voice activation and their possible application in Help:

• New interactions require new technique and processes.
• Proprietary interactions (e.g. Siri, automotive manufacturers) make software development hard.
• We need APIs: Android Google Voice, iOS Siri, Windows Phone API.
• Automotive companies may lead with voice-activated audio systems and controls as these are happening now, but these are very proprietary and customized to the manufacturer.
• Visual Studio Express for Windows Phone 8 (free) — API is available to all developers; there’s no API for Siri, and thus Siri only works with a few applications.
• Voice Command Definition file in Visual Studio Express for Windows Phone 8 is an XML file and this is the file most likely to be used by tech communicators in detailing the voice commands and responses, phrases, keywords to listen for etc.
• Accents aren’t an area that can be easily dealt with yet.

Projecting the user’s cost benefit analysis

David Farkas gave a great talk on how to do a cost benefit analysis with both team members and users to find out what means of delivering user assistance cost the least yet give the best return. I have very few notes from this session as quite a bit of it was example matrices etc.

CSS3 for Help authors

Tony Self listed some of the things that are/were wrong with CSS2 (most were minor shortcomings) and outlined the main changes and the swag of additions in CSS3. The problem is that no browsers support all elements of CSS3, most support very little at this stage (though Tony predicts that will be very different within two years); he also advises that you check matrices of feature support before deciding to implement a CSS3 feature or not. And he advised us to check W3Schools, which has a great CSS reference area.

Areas that he summarized are:

• More precise selectors
• Box properties
• Transitions and animations (animation properties are all new)
• Namespaces/prefixes (e.g. -webkit [Safari, Chrome, Kindle, Android], -moz [Firefox], -ms [Internet Explorer), which add vendor-specific instructions for specific browsers
• Conditions
• Border properties
• Font stuff (e.g. embedded fonts… sort of…)
• Columns
• Template layouts
• Page media for very sophisticated print output
• Transforms
• Speech.

What’s ahead? Tony’s final words and advice were to not change for change’s sake; the personal computing and web is changing to support smaller and larger devices; related technologies are changing. For those involved in user assistance: wait until these things are integrated into the HATs (just as DHTML ultimately was integrated into HATs), and continue to separate form from content.

Modern assistance for Windows Store Apps

Paul O’Rear spoke about how assistance can be integrated with Window Store Apps (there is no Help API, so it’s pretty much ‘roll your own’). Much of this was a bit techie for me, but what I did take away was that Microsoft will no longer be developing any new Help technologies (no surprises there — it’s just taken a long time to hear it ‘officially’), and that HTML Help/CHMs will continue to work with Windows 8.

Smart ways to re-use content

Matthew Ellison’s presentation started with a discussion of the types of scenarios that suit single-sourcing: variations on a product (pro vs lite version); different target audience; different countries/locations; variations in platforms.

Successful information re-use tips:

• Don’t measure success by the amount of re-use.
• Focus on the primary output type.
• Use context-agnostic output types.
• Only re-use self-contained chunks of information.
• If you’re using conditions, keep it simple!

Leveraging UA content for corporate deliverables

Beth Gerber demonstrated how her team had leveraged the Help content for a large organization to provide training materials for both leaders and participants. They used RoboHelp’s conditional build tags to separate out the information for each group, content filters for the employees, and embedded training videos (with scoring capabilities) into the Help.

Trends in mobile user assistance

The final session of the conference was a plenary session where Joe Welinske summarized many of the discussions and sessions held over the past two days relating to mobile devices.

******************

Then it was all over for another year.

Some final comments from me:

• Thanks to Joe and his team for another great conference.
• I appreciated the 35 minute time slots for sessions — it kept the presentations focused on the key points.
• A note to presenters: PLEASE DO NOT use lime green and white in your slides if white is your background color. It just doesn’t work and is really hard to read. Same goes for light gray font on white, and for small fonts. Bump up the font size to at least 20 pts in PowerPoint and make sure your slides have great contrast — black and white is GOOD.
• Thanks also to the banquet team at Hyatt at Olive8 in Seattle for some great meals and good service.

Food etc.

• Breakfast: Scrambled Eggs with Roasted Peppers & Spinach; Sliced Fruit; The Day’s Pastry; Diced Potatoes
• Lunch: Herb Roasted Chicken Breast with Garlic Jus; Hearty Mashed Potatoes; Steamed Green Beans; Lemon Tarts
• Closing Session Snack: Local Treats: Chukar Cherries; Kukuruza Popcorn; Sahale Snacks; Dry Sodas

WritersUA Conference: Day 1: 7 March 2013

This year’s WritersUA Conference is only for two days instead of the usual three; there are two streams of sessions instead of up to five; and all sessions are just over 30 minutes long. Day 1 had eight sessions (plus the welcome session and the evening ‘networking mixer’) so I’ll only summarize each session I attended very briefly. Remember, these comments are my opinion ONLY.

Life after PDF

Bob Boiko asserted that PDF’s day is over as it isn’t the right sort of deliverable for chunked and structured content, and is a hangover from a pervasive ‘print’ attitude. It may be suitable for narrative documents, but that’s about all. With the introduction of the internet and chunked/linked/re-used content, PDF should have disappeared. He suggested that we should either destroy the document or redefine it. Destroying the document paradigm is what component content management is all about, but he suggested that redefining the document is a better way to go. Bob used the Bible as an example of chunked AND narrative content.

I really wasn’t sure of the point he was trying to make about the destroy/redefine paradigm.

Evaluating the ROI of user assistance assets

I really felt for Tom Woolums — by his own admission he wasn’t used to public speaking and didn’t like it, and then about 5 minutes into his presentation, the audio system started playing up. I’ve been there, and it’s not easy to keep on going and not fall apart. Eventually the audio got sorted and he could continue.

Tom gave a LOT of information on his slides about treating our documentation as a business asset with value propositions, KPIs, ROI etc. and showed us some examples of how to calculate these and communicate the results to our teams and managers. I wasn’t quite sure what the point of the links to various support websites (including Microsoft’s and Java’s) were all about, except to make us aware that many of these support pages were actually directing us to buy more products.

Engaging users with attractive and inviting Help deliverables

I’d seen Steve Stegelin speak a couple of days earlier and had difficulty in hearing/understanding him then. I thought it was the audio system, but I think it was his speaking style. I had as much trouble understanding his presentation this time too, which was a shame as I was quite interested in what they were doing in his company to use various visual styles to make the Help more attractive and engaging, especially as he stated that 60% of the population are visual learners.

Applying a customer experience focus to user assistance

Michelle Despres is obviously passionate about her role in the company she works for, and it shows. She gave a very engaging presentation on how she has taken a focus on customer experience in providing user assistance and support to her company’s clients. The customer experience (CX) is what your customers think about you, and it should be the same for every interaction your customer has with your company (e.g. sales, support, etc.). The ideal CX progression is from a consistently satisfied customer to a confident one, to a loyal one, to one who recommends your company, to an unpaid evangelist for your company. You need to identify the journey a customer takes with your company, and for each part of that journey, identify how customers interact with you. Identify the pain points in those interactions and address those first. Create listening posts to hear what customers are saying.

Explanatory animation

Nancy Wirsig McClure showed us how motion graphics can be applied to simple diagrams, charts etc. ‘Explanatory animation’ is really just a mashup of infographics and motion graphics (as used in animations). The essence of motion graphics is ‘change over time’.

Only add animation where it tells the story better than just the words or a static image. Options for animation include sound, pacing, branching, and user controls. Technologies include Flash (not suitable for iOS), video, and even animated GIFs. Be aware of file sizes and whether the output is shareable online. Development tools that Nancy uses include Adobe Illustrator,  Photoshop, and After Effects (for applying timelines, key frames, and interpolation to the illustration and graphic assets). The authoring phases are: think, write and draw, prepare the digital assets, produce ‘the show’, and test with users. I thought that Nancy explained the Adobe After Effects really well and very simply — with graphics of course!

Embedding instructional content into the software UI

Sandra Chinoporus is a Content Strategist with eBay, and the focus of her team is on eBay small business sellers. Her talk was about how they have approached writing for their users using a friendly, informal, conversational style and how that builds trust in the small business seller community. Her talk was interesting and delivered well, but her slides were impossible to read from the back of the room (small gray text), as were her screenshot examples.

Balancing structured needs with ‘unstructured’ authors

Maxwell Hoffmann is a fast-talking, funny, self-deprecating speaker, who got through a LOT of content in a short amount of time. I wasn’t quite sure what this session would be about based on the title; it was about the current version of FrameMaker and how there are various viewing modes in FM that can hide the XML code and/or structural views from authors who don’t want to see them. I’ve never used FM, so I didn’t know whether I’d get much out of this session; however, Maxwell also showed us how to import Word content (using Smart Paste), which preserves the structure of the Word document, including tables, graphics, etc. — that was pretty neat!

His advice for dealing with a reluctant team was to cleanse the content first; start with a small project; use FM as a container; make use of custom DITA workspaces, authoring view and WYSWYG view to create a rewarding experience; and customize FM structapps to apply as much automatic insertion as possible.

Moving to specialized roles in UA development

The last speaker of the sessions I attended today was Mysti Berry from Salesforce. When a team gets large, implementing specialized roles may be a way to keep focused on issues that span groups, releases, and attention spans. Some example specialized roles include: knowledge manager, content strategist, information architect, tools developers and QA, UA specialist, video specialist, as well as informal specializations (e.g. Bob knows DITA, Shirley knows grammar, etc.). Changing to incorporate specialized roles can be both challenging and rewarding. Specialized roles will need help to succeed — training, realistic expectations (failure may be needed before success can occur). Recipes for success include: job descriptions, clear priorities, 30/60/90 day plans, keep the new role in the information loop, use goal-based reporting and frequent check-ins, give people a path back if the role doesn’t fit but don’t let them give up too early.

Mysti finished early, which was a nice bonus!

Food and drink

• Breakfast: Scrambled Eggs with Mushrooms and Carmelized Onions; Sliced Fruit; The Day’s Pastry; Home Fries
• Lunch: Roasted Marinated Flat Iron Steak over bed of arugula salad, marinated tomatoes, black olives, and red onions; Choice of Balsamic Dressing or Blue Cheese; Malted Brownies
• Networking Mixer at the Elephant & Castle Pub: Bangers in a Blanket; Veggie Spring Rolls; Potato Skins; Fresh Vegetable Platter; Bruschetta