10 Ways to Please Us, the Customers
NYT published this list. I thought the ones below might ring a bell to all you tech writers out there: II. Thou shalt hire native English speakers to translate thine instruction manual. “When the camera focus is not so possible, hold the shutter button vaguely until the beeping tone is heard.” Is that really how […]
Top Ten Documentation Heuristics by Vesa Purho
“For example, people working on a rooftop installing some hardware would not necessarily be delighted with nice multimedia CD-ROMs but prefer a laminated quick reference card.” That statement pretty much sums it up for me. Read on! 1. Match between documentation and the real world The documentation should speak the users’ language, with words, phrases, […]
Engrish!
MS Office 12 to Support PDF
Microsoft has announced that it will introduce PDF (Portable Document Format) support in its forthcoming version of Office, code-named “Office 12”, scheduled for release in the second half of 2006. Reportedly, the PDF format will be integrated in MS Word, Excel, Publisher, PowerPoint and InfoPath among other applications. Microsoft maintains that the inclusion of PDF […]
Aah?
The other day a couple of my colleagues were discussing about the bad habit of adding the ‘aah’ sound while phrasing a question. I don’t know if it is bad; but it sure will give ulcers to the purists. Take for example how ‘are you coming with us?’ is brutally hacked to a single word […]
Tech writer or DTP Expert?
I saw these requirements for a technical writer opening on one of those ‘Urgent-wanted tech writers’ mails: HTML programming, Javascript Microsoft Office suite (Word, PowerPoint, Excel), Microsoft FrontPage Macromedia Dreamweaver Macromedia Flash Adobe Photoshop, Adobe ImageReady, Adobe PageMaker, Adobe Acrobat, RoboHelp Microsoft Visio I wonder why they left out C, C++, Java, and VisualBasic? Why, […]
A brand name gone wrong
“Did you know that Heroin was originally a brand name for cough syrup? In 1874, German scientists developed a formula for a painkiller that they thought would be less addictive than morphine. They simply added two acetyls to morphine to synthesize diacetylmorphine. Heinrich Dreser, the head of Bayer drug development tried it on animals and […]
Interactive Documentation
Novell has a ‘Comments’ feature on its product documentation pages. User can leave their feedback instantly, instead of sending an E-mail later. (But why does the RSS link fail on your site guys?) Microsoft too has an instant feedback feature for its documentation, but somehow I don’t like it. It appears to be complex, as […]
Review of Screen Capture Tools
Check out the Review of Screen Capture Tools. Neat. [Via Usable Help]
Microsoft goes the RSS way
The Microsoft Help and Support site is now providing an RSS feed (Really Simple Syndication) for its Knowledge Base (KB) articles. [Link] Well, well, well. MS is only syndicating its KB articles, but I am thinking a step ahead: deliver a user manual (also) through RSS. Most organizations are moving (or have moved already) to […]