Goodbye, Arial and Verdana. Hello, Web Fonts! - STC Technical

310 Pages·2012·10.91 MB·English

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© 2012 Society for Technical Communication
The Society for Technical Communication’s 59th Annual Conference focuses on important trends in
our profession. This publication contains papers submitted in support of the 2012 Summit
conference sessions. This year’s conference is the result of the efforts of many individuals,
including the Conference Manager, Program Advisory Committee, and staff of STC.

Conference Chair
Paul Mueller

2012 Program Advisory Committee
Alyssa Fox, Program Chair
Education and Training/Academic and Research Topics
Dr. Thomas Barker, Track Manager
People, Project, and Business Management; Professional Development
Louellen Coker, Track Manager
Content Development
Jae Evans, Track Manager
Web Design & Development; Visual Design
Richard Hamilton, Track Manager
Content Delivery
Chris Hester, Track Manager
User Experience and Accessibility
Brenda Huettner, Track Manager
Social Media
Carolyn Kelley Klinger, Track Manager
Content Strategy and Design
Mark Lewis, Track Manager
Join us for our Diamond Anniversary!
Society for Technical Communication
Technical Communication Summit
60th Annual Conference
5-8 May, 2013
Atlanta, Georgia
Contents
Education and Training
Technical Writing Meets Instructional Design ............................................................ 1
Correlations Between Educators’ Communication and Learning Styles .................... 6
Professional Development
Bullet Proofing Your Career Online ......................................................................... 14
Understanding and Overcoming Resistance to Change .......................................... 19
How Personality Type Affects Negotiating Style and Tone ...................................... 23
The Technical Communicator’s Role in the Facilitation of High Reliability
Organizations .......................................................................................................... 28
Virtual vs. Local Teams: Communication Success and Failure ............................... 33
What Should Technical Communicators Do When Products “Just Work”? .............. 39
Content Delivery
Why Not DocBook? ................................................................................................. 43
Creating EPUBs: What's the Best Tool for Me? ...................................................... 47
Migrating Content: How to Tackle the XML-L10N Beast .......................................... 54
Open Source Automated Documentation in a Development Environment ............... 67
User Experience and Accessibility
12 Key Mobile Usability Guidelines You Need to Implement Now ........................... 79
Think-Aloud Protocols: Does Age Make a Difference? ............................................ 86
People, Project, and Business Management
Project Tracking and Metrics Using SharePoint ...................................................... 96
Collaboration in Decentralized Culture: Developing a Single Voice for Microsoft .. 105

STC Technical Communication Summit Contents  v
How Writers Can Thrive in Agile Software Development ....................................... 109
Launching a Tech Communication Business — Both Sides Now .......................... 117
Learning Lessons from a Completed Communications Project ............................. 120
Adapt, Innovate, Expand — How to Stay Relevant ............................................... 126
Content Development
Body Work — Rebuilding Documentation Car Wrecks .......................................... 129
Pattern Recognition for Technical Communicators ................................................ 139
Five+ Ways to Add Interactivity to Online Help...................................................... 145
The Evolving Role of the Technical Editor ............................................................. 148
Plain Language for Technical Communicators ...................................................... 152
Speech Intelligibility: Its Purpose and Scope in Technical Communication ........... 154
Translation Technology: MT, TM, and Translation Reuse ..................................... 167
Content Strategy: Google Analytics & Writing for the Web .................................... 171
Content Strategy and Design
Enabling Progressive Information Disclosure with the “Stages of Use” Model ....... 177
Web Design and Development
Goodbye, Arial and Verdana. Hello, Web Fonts! ................................................... 189
Building a Developer Documentation Wiki ............................................................ 198
Visual Design
Bite the Bullet® ― Creating Multimodal Presentations .......................................... 204
Social Media
Technical Writing — New Horizons ....................................................................... 208
Brave New World: Tapping Enterprise Communities Through Gamification .......... 213
Progressions
Audio Recording Simplified: Understanding Noise, Distortion, and Gain ............... 223
Tutorial Pacing ...................................................................................................... 227
Practitioner-Student Interaction: From Classroom to Cloud ................................... 233

vi  Contents STC Technical Communication Summit
Designing Student Projects for the TC BOK .......................................................... 237
Mentoring 101: Other Duties as Assigned by Manager ......................................... 240
Using Meta-Communication to Manage Successful Online Teams ....................... 243
Under Resourced? Use Agile Components to Increase Productivity .................... 246
Tips and Tricks for Communicating with Remote Teams ....................................... 250
Clutch and Cool Tech Comm: How to Train .......................................................... 254
Greatly Exceeds Expectations .............................................................................. 259
Driving Change: Empowering Yourself to Empower Your Organization ................ 261
How to Merge Two Corporate Style Guides .......................................................... 266
Using Checklists for More Efficient Editing ............................................................ 270
It’s All Marcomm: A Tech Writer Goes Fluffy ......................................................... 274
Our Users [Sort of] Help Write Our Documentation ............................................... 277
Writing for Global Audiences ................................................................................. 280
Style Guide without Tears ..................................................................................... 282
Excellence, No Drama .......................................................................................... 288
Is There Anyone Out There? Working Virtually ..................................................... 290
Transform a Prospect Meeting into a Signed Contract .......................................... 293
How to Encourage Good Use of SharePoint ......................................................... 296

Index ................................................................................................................................ 301

STC Technical Communication Summit Contents  vii
viii  Contents STC Technical Communication Summit
TECHNICAL WRITING MEETS INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN
Sharon Jendrisak and Jennifer Beaujon
This presentation will take the attendees past the old stigmatisms of technical writing, and show them how
instructional design is not as different as it appears to be. Attendees will get a glimpse of the differences and
similarities of the two jobs, and hear about a company that understands that a person can actually effectively
perform both functions. They will learn what tools are used in each industry, and then dive into the myths
about technical writing and instructional design. They’ll see examples of how taking a simple procedure can
involve a different approach, depending on what the outcome will be. Finally, attendees will gain the
knowledge of how to transition themselves from a technical writer to an instructional designer.
MYTHS
There are many myths about the fields of technical writing and instructional design. The following table
describes the common myths and provides an explanation about why these myths are not true.
Field Myth Fact
Technical Technical writers spend While majority of time is spent writing, technical writers also:
Writing all their time writing.
 Structuring content
 Setting up styles
 Formatting
 Information gathering
 Content updates
 Other
Everyone can write; Technical writers do more than just copy content. They think of
companies do not need the end user and determine the best way to convey
technical writers. information.
Technical writers do not Technical writers often have to convey extremely technical
need to be creative. information to a non-technical end user, and must determine
different avenues of information deliverance.
Technical writers must While this remains true the majority of the time, some
remain objectives. companies are allowing more freedoms than they used to.

© Copyright 2012 STC STC Technical Communication Summit  1
Field Myth Fact
Instructional Instructional designers Instructional designers often have to create interactivity
Design do not need to throughout the courses. They must know the functionalities of
understand technology. the program to be able to utilize it to the fullest capacity.
Instructional designers Though instructional designers do not have to be experts, it is
do not need to know good to have a basic understanding of these tools to be able
graphic design tools. to create or alter graphics.
The instructional Many companies are converting manuals to other forms of
designer will never communication (elearning, webcasts, etc.), and you will need
have to look at another to use the manuals as source and reference material.
manual.
Once the project has The instructional designer may be asked to perform usability
been designed, the testing. Also in some cases, the instructional designer is the
instructional designer is programmer or facilitator.
finished.
COMPARING/CONTRASTING JOB FUNCTIONS
The following are job descriptions for each field:
 Instructional designer: When working on a project for a client, instructional designers assume the role
of teachers. They plan the overall instructional flow of the program and see that content is both
appropriate and clearly communicated. Instructional designers must be familiar not only with the
content to be learned and the level of the learner, but also with a computer’s means of presenting
information and interacting with users.
 Technical writer: Technical writers explain in simple language scientific and technical ideas that are
difficult for the average reader to understand.
The following table describes the types of deliverables for each field:
Field Deliverable Types
Technical  Manuals
Writing
 Job Aids
 Quick Reference Guides
 Workflows
Instructional  Training class materials
Designer
 Webcasts
 Elearning courses
2  STC Technical Communication Summit © Copyright 2012 STC