Comments on: Writer-Dictated vs. User-Dictated Experience http://www.gryphonmountain.net/2008/07/writer-dictated-vs-user-dictated-experience/ Technical Communication and Other Writing Topics, by Ben Minson Wed, 11 Jan 2012 04:05:49 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.4 By:   Weekly links roundup by Communications from DMN http://www.gryphonmountain.net/2008/07/writer-dictated-vs-user-dictated-experience/#comment-144   Weekly links roundup by Communications from DMN Sat, 20 Sep 2008 10:10:55 +0000 http://www.gryphonmountain.net/?p=79#comment-144 [...] Ben Minson ponders the differences between writer-dictated and user-dictated experience [...] [...] Ben Minson ponders the differences between writer-dictated and user-dictated experience [...]

]]> By: Neil Perlin http://www.gryphonmountain.net/2008/07/writer-dictated-vs-user-dictated-experience/#comment-143 Neil Perlin Thu, 24 Jul 2008 08:26:38 +0000 http://www.gryphonmountain.net/?p=79#comment-143 Hi Ben, Here's the session description from the STC web site: "Structured authoring can improve authors' productivity, facilitate single-source and multi-channel publishing, decrease localization costs, and increase opportunities for content re-use. But what exactly is structured authoring? Three experts in structured authoring, XML publishing, and DITA will debate its meaning, and will discuss the benefits and pitfalls of a range of approaches to structured authoring." I agree that the user-perspective probably *should* be part of such a presentation, but that simply wasn't the case here. I don't know why my user review panel idea didn't pan out. It may be that I didn't push it enough or it may be that the organizers just didn't think it was that good an idea. And I never followed up on it. We agree about the difficulty of enforcing consistency in wiki submissions from end-users. My experience is that it's hard enough to get tech communicaters - e.g. professionals - to be consistent, let alone the non-professionals. Cheers, Neil Hi Ben,

Here’s the session description from the STC web site:

“Structured authoring can improve authors’ productivity, facilitate single-source and multi-channel publishing, decrease localization costs, and increase opportunities for content re-use. But what exactly is structured authoring? Three experts in structured authoring, XML publishing, and DITA will debate its meaning, and will discuss the benefits and pitfalls of a range of approaches to structured authoring.”

I agree that the user-perspective probably *should* be part of such a presentation, but that simply wasn’t the case here.

I don’t know why my user review panel idea didn’t pan out. It may be that I didn’t push it enough or it may be that the organizers just didn’t think it was that good an idea. And I never followed up on it.

We agree about the difficulty of enforcing consistency in wiki submissions from end-users. My experience is that it’s hard enough to get tech communicaters – e.g. professionals – to be consistent, let alone the non-professionals.

Cheers,
Neil

]]> By: Ben http://www.gryphonmountain.net/2008/07/writer-dictated-vs-user-dictated-experience/#comment-142 Ben Wed, 23 Jul 2008 22:43:21 +0000 http://www.gryphonmountain.net/?p=79#comment-142 Neil, I appreciate your comments. I apologize for not including Alan Houser; I couldn't remember his name, and I also couldn't find a list of the conference sessions that had the names of the presenters or panelists, so I went with the ones I remembered—you and Sarah.I don't know if the panel's focus on the writer's side of structured authoring was stated outright, and if it was, I missed it—in which case, the mistake is mine. I like your idea of having a user panel review the contest entries. What's the reasoning behind your idea not panning out?Good point about providing a structure in a Web 2.0 environment. One source of resistance to wikis for documentation, and I'll admit this applies to me, is that it would be hard to enforce order. I suppose a wiki page could have text boxes for elements like title, introduction, instructions, warnings or cautions, and so forth, then behind the scenes, tags could be applied to the content of the text boxes. I have contributed to our organization's helpdesk knowledgebase, and its interface for writing articles contains text boxes much like I've described, though I doubt specific tags are applied to the content other than HTML tags for rendering in a browser. Neil, I appreciate your comments. I apologize for not including Alan Houser; I couldn’t remember his name, and I also couldn’t find a list of the conference sessions that had the names of the presenters or panelists, so I went with the ones I remembered—you and Sarah.I don’t know if the panel’s focus on the writer’s side of structured authoring was stated outright, and if it was, I missed it—in which case, the mistake is mine. I like your idea of having a user panel review the contest entries. What’s the reasoning behind your idea not panning out?Good point about providing a structure in a Web 2.0 environment. One source of resistance to wikis for documentation, and I’ll admit this applies to me, is that it would be hard to enforce order. I suppose a wiki page could have text boxes for elements like title, introduction, instructions, warnings or cautions, and so forth, then behind the scenes, tags could be applied to the content of the text boxes. I have contributed to our organization’s helpdesk knowledgebase, and its interface for writing articles contains text boxes much like I’ve described, though I doubt specific tags are applied to the content other than HTML tags for rendering in a browser.

]]> By: Neil Perlin http://www.gryphonmountain.net/2008/07/writer-dictated-vs-user-dictated-experience/#comment-141 Neil Perlin Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:22:01 +0000 http://www.gryphonmountain.net/?p=79#comment-141 Hello, I ran across your entry and wanted to toss in a few points for consideration... 1. The goal of the panel was precisely to discuss the definition of structured authoring from the writer's perspective, which is why there was so little mention of the user. It would be interesting to have a panel that consisted of a representative sample of users to see what they had in mind. About five years ago, I proposed that the STC hold a parallel online doc competition with a panel of users who'd review the same entries as real STC judges to see how their perspectives differed. Nothing ever came of the idea, but I still think it would be interesting. 2. Don't forget Alan Houser in the list of panelists. He discussed structured authoring from the pure DITA perspective, Sarah from the structured Frame perspective, and me from the templates-without-DITA-or-Frame perspective. 3. I maintain that THE primary benefit of consistently structured material is easier comprehension and navigation. But I will add another user-related benefit. If you're going to some Web 2.0 model that will call for user-generated content, structure will make it easier for users to submit material in a form that's both easy for them to use and easy for the tech writers to work into the larger information model. Thoughts? Cheers, Neil Hello,

I ran across your entry and wanted to toss in a few points for consideration…

1. The goal of the panel was precisely to discuss the definition of structured authoring from the writer’s perspective, which is why there was so little mention of the user.

It would be interesting to have a panel that consisted of a representative sample of users to see what they had in mind. About five years ago, I proposed that the STC hold a parallel online doc competition with a panel of users who’d review the same entries as real STC judges to see how their perspectives differed. Nothing ever came of the idea, but I still think it would be interesting.

2. Don’t forget Alan Houser in the list of panelists. He discussed structured authoring from the pure DITA perspective, Sarah from the structured Frame perspective, and me from the templates-without-DITA-or-Frame perspective.

3. I maintain that THE primary benefit of consistently structured material is easier comprehension and navigation. But I will add another user-related benefit. If you’re going to some Web 2.0 model that will call for user-generated content, structure will make it easier for users to submit material in a form that’s both easy for them to use and easy for the tech writers to work into the larger information model.

Thoughts?

Cheers,
Neil

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