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D7-ERICSA-Presentation – Is Your Documentation Relevant for the
4/28/2016 IS YOUR DOCUMENTATION RELEVANT FOR THE 21st CENTURY? Cindy Holdren, Center for the Support of Families Michelle Le Feve, Courtland Consulting Marcia Witt, Courtland Consulting ERICSA 53rd Annual Training Conference & Exposition ▪ May 1 - 5 ▪ Myrtle Beach, South Carolina If you don't care about your product, why should I?: Writing Effective Training & Technical Documentation Is Your Documentation Relevant for the 21st Century? Quality training materials and user documentation decreases the likelihood that users have with US your product or service and itsmartphones, reduces the needisfor your help With 191 issues million consumers using desk support. The key to writing successful documentation is in the style and format documentation evolving to meet the needs for the millennial of the document. No matter how good the information is, if it is not written in clear generation? Creating policy, training or technical materials that are language and cleanly presented it can be difficult to use. Documentation should be consistent in tone, language professionally styled increases your easy to read, easy for the reader to and understand and well organized. Writing effective credibility, provides a more engaging experience, reducesin documentation is time consuming, but creatinguser documentation thatand is consistent overall support and costs. This session bestcredibility, practices and a tone and language professionally styled willprovides increase your provide more engaging experience reduce overall support costs. This will resources to user increase your and writing efficiency and usability for session the 21st cover steps for producing quality documentation and present practical tips and tricks Century. to increase your writing efficiency through the use of style guides and templates. Participants will be provided with samples as a take away. ERICSA 53rd Annual Training Conference & Exposition ▪ May 1 - 5 ▪ Myrtle Beach, South Carolina 1 Creating Brighter Days for Families 4/28/2016 Great Documentation = Customer Satisfaction Creating Brighter Days for Families ERICSA 53rd Annual Training Conference & Exposition ▪ May 1 - 5 ▪ Myrtle Beach, South Carolina Keys to Relevant Documentation The Writing Process Design, Organization & Management Trends & Tools 4 ERICSA 53rd Annual Training Conference & Exposition ▪ May 1 - 5 ▪ Myrtle Beach, South Carolina 2 Creating Brighter Days for Families 4/28/2016 The Writing Process 5 ERICSA 53rd Annual Training Conference & Exposition ▪ May 1 - 5 ▪ Myrtle Beach, South Carolina Creating Brighter Days for Families Key Points The writing process presents the steps from prewriting through the finished product There are several unique considerations when creating web documentation 6 ERICSA 53rd Annual Training Conference & Exposition ▪ May 1 - 5 ▪ Myrtle Beach, South Carolina 3 4/28/2016 The Writing Process The Writing Process Editing Prewriting Collaborating Drafting Publishing Revising 7 Creating Brighter Days for Families Prewriting Think about the audience What do they need to know? Review other documents Choose a structure More important for larger documents Different for web content Generate ideas 8 Brainstorm Talk with colleagues ERICSA 53rd Annual Training Conference & Exposition ▪ May 1 - 5 ▪ Myrtle Beach, South Carolina 4 4/28/2016 Creating Brighter Days for Families Drafting Just start writing Don’t worry about spelling, sequencing Put down what you know and what you think about the topic Add notes where you may be missing information Keep audience in mind 9 What do they need to know? ERICSA 53rd Annual Training Conference & Exposition ▪ May 1 - 5 ▪ Myrtle Beach, South Carolina Creating Brighter Days for Families Revising & Collaborating Revise Add Rearrange Replace Remove Start at the top and do repeatedly Take a break and go back when fresh Collaborate 10 Formal Informal ERICSA 53rd Annual Training Conference & Exposition ▪ May 1 - 5 ▪ Myrtle Beach, South Carolina 5 4/28/2016 Creating Brighter Days for Families Editing & Publishing Edit Slice and dice Check for logic Check for errors and omissions Repeat above steps numerous times! Publish Final destination Website Report Other document 11 ERICSA 53rd Annual Training Conference & Exposition ▪ May 1 - 5 ▪ Myrtle Beach, South Carolina Scanning the Web Average page visit is less than 1 minute 12 Source: http://www.digitalgov.gov/2014/04/04/heatmapping-tools-show-whats-hot-on-your-pages/ 6 4/28/2016 Creating Brighter Days for Families Scanning the Web Viewers scan but do not read Scan is from left to right mostly at the top of the page Viewers read headings, not dense text Bite, snack, meal approach Bite – 10 words or less; think heading Snack – summary in 1 sentence Meal – full content 13 ERICSA 53rd Annual Training Conference & Exposition ▪ May 1 - 5 ▪ Myrtle Beach, South Carolina Example – Bite, Snack, Meal 14 Bite, Snack, Meal 7 4/28/2016 Creating Brighter Days for Families Writing Web Content Organize content using the inverted pyramid principle to prioritize text to Conclusions and takeaways Supporting details Background 15 ERICSA 53rd Annual Training Conference & Exposition ▪ May 1 - 5 ▪ Myrtle Beach, South Carolina Creating Brighter Days for Families Tips on Web Content Short, descriptive headings Bullets – easy to skim! Numbered lists when order matters Short sentences with no jargon Active voice for verbs Hyperlinks to provide more detail 16 ERICSA 53rd Annual Training Conference & Exposition ▪ May 1 - 5 ▪ Myrtle Beach, South Carolina 8 Creating Brighter Days for Families 4/28/2016 Design, Organization & Management 17 ERICSA 53rd Annual Training Conference & Exposition ▪ May 1 - 5 ▪ Myrtle Beach, South Carolina Creating Brighter Days for Families Key Points Effective documentation is well: 18 o Written o Designed o Organized o Maintained ERICSA 53rd Annual Training Conference & Exposition ▪ May 1 - 5 ▪ Myrtle Beach, South Carolina 9 Creating Brighter Days for Families 4/28/2016 Good Design Supports the audience & objectives Easy to understand & use 19 ERICSA 53rd Annual Training Conference & Exposition ▪ May 1 - 5 ▪ Myrtle Beach, South Carolina Design & Development Framework Analyze A Evaluate Design E Implement D I D Develop 20 10 4/28/2016 21 32% of audiences have fallen asleep during a PowerPoint presentation 55% of snoozers have fallen asleep twice or more 20% would rather pay taxes or go to the dentist than view a PowerPoint Source: Survey conducted by IBOPE Zogby International for SlideRocket, in May 2011 22 11 4/28/2016 Make It Engaging Technical Documents Web Content + pie charts + graphs + frames + colors + icons + user interface + graphics + video + audio + interactives supporting graphics meaningful graphics PowerPoint TM + fonts + colors + contrast + infographics + interactivity 23 *Source for technical: http://www.cypressmedia.net/articles/article/15/improving_the_appearance_of_your_technical_document Sample Infographic 24 Source: elearninginfographics.com SH!FT 12 4/28/2016 Sample Infographic Creating Brighter Days for Families 25 Source: elearninginfographics.com Allen Interactions Make It Quality Use a style guide to standardize style elements and presentation conventions Use templates to ensure consistency across sections 26 ERICSA 53rd Annual Training Conference & Exposition ▪ May 1 - 5 ▪ Myrtle Beach, South Carolina 13 Creating Brighter Days for Families 4/28/2016 Evaluate Usability Testing Controlled Comparative Studies Paraphrase Testing evaluateevaluateevaluate Source: http://www.plainlanguage.gov/howto/guidelines/FederalPLGuidelines 27 ERICSA 53rd Annual Training Conference & Exposition ▪ May 1 - 5 ▪ Myrtle Beach, South Carolina Four LevelsOrganizing of Learning Evaluation Makes (Dollars) & Sense Level 4: Results To what degree do targeted outcomes occur as a result of the learning event and workplace reinforcement? Level 3: Behavior Do participants apply what they learned in training once they return to work? Level 2: Learning Do participants acquire the intended knowledge and skills based on their participation in the learning event? Level 1: Reaction Do participants react favorably to a learning event? Examp le 2 Source: Kirkpatrick, D.L., & Kirkpatrick, J.D. (2007). Implementing the Four Levels, Berrett‐Koehler Publishers. Examp le 3 Examp le 4 14 4/28/2016 Make It Use Make Easy It Easy Easytoto toUse Use 29 Organizing Makes (Dollars) & Sense According to information collated by Cottrell Research, employees spend too much time looking for information needed to support their work. 1.8 19.8% business time wasted by employees searching for information to do their job effectively Hours a day searching and gathering information 8 13% Since 2002, increase in time spent searching for information Number of searches a typical worker makes to find information Examp le 2 Examp le 3 Source: http://cottrillresearch.com/various-survey-statistics-workers-spend-too-much-timesearching-for-information / Examp le 4 30 15 4/28/2016 The Need for Maintenance Problem Slide Maintenance Don’t leave your documentation with potholes! Creating Brighter Days for Families 31 Maintenance Toolkit Content updates change controls version control file management Web updates Content updates + accessibility broken links for app updates browser compatibility analytics legal elements 32 When you need to update web code— document changes ERICSA 53rd Annual Training Conference & Exposition ▪ May 1 - 5 ▪ Myrtle Beach, South Carolina 16 Creating Brighter Days for Families 4/28/2016 Maintenance Keep your documentation to date so you don’t let your users 33 ERICSA 53rd Annual Training Conference & Exposition ▪ May 1 - 5 ▪ Myrtle Beach, South Carolina Summary adds value! 34 17 Creating Brighter Days for Families 4/28/2016 Trends & Tools 35 ERICSA 53rd Annual Training Conference & Exposition ▪ May 1 - 5 ▪ Myrtle Beach, South Carolina Creating Brighter Days for Families Key Points Future trends in mobile learning impact documentation design and delivery Online resources present new channels for collaborative writing 36 ERICSA 53rd Annual Training Conference & Exposition ▪ May 1 - 5 ▪ Myrtle Beach, South Carolina 18 4/28/2016 197.4 million US Consumers use smartphones Source: comScore Dec 2015 37 By 2020, Mobile devices will be the primary connection to Internet worldwide Source: Pew Research Center (Welinske) 38 19 4/28/2016 Mobile Learning & Support Channels: Blogs Wikis Authoring Tools Mobile Apps Methods: Responsive Design Video Gamefication 39 Tools 40 20 4/28/2016 Writing & Collaborative Tools Wikis & Blogs File Sharing Productivity Apps Web & Video Conferencing Writing Apps Authoring Tools eLearning Tools 41 Chronicle Adobe Captivate Office Productivity MS Suite Blog Documentation Website 42 21 4/28/2016 Blog Support Website 43 Creating Brighter Days for Families Resources www.courtlandconsulting.com/ericsa2016 Presentation Training & Technical guide examples Infographic examples Writing style guide example Training evaluation tips Federal resource site for agencies delivering digital services to the public Writing and collaborative tools handout 44 ERICSA 53rd Annual Training Conference & Exposition ▪ May 1 - 5 ▪ Myrtle Beach, South Carolina 22 4/28/2016 Creating Brighter Days for Families Review & Questions Thank you for participating!! 45 ERICSA 53rd Annual Training Conference & Exposition ▪ May 1 - 5 ▪ Myrtle Beach, South Carolina Creating Brighter Days for Families Speakers Cindy Holdren 46 Marcia Witt Michelle Le Feve Senior Consultant, Center for the Support of Families Senior Consultant & Training Specialist, Courtland Consulting Project Manager & Communication Analyst, Courtland Consulting cynthia.holdren@acf.hhs.gov wittm@courtlandconsulting.com lefevem@courtlandconsulting.com ERICSA 53rd Annual Training Conference & Exposition ▪ May 1 - 5 ▪ Myrtle Beach, South Carolina 23 4/28/2016 Creating Brighter Days for Families Copyright Considerations Graphics provided in this presentation are used under license from Shutterstock by the speakers or source materials cited where used. Exceptions are noted below: Bitmojis are the property of each speaker Tip icon: Artist dtafalonso under license CC Attribution-No Derivative 4.0 All rights reserved to their respective owners for product and company trademarks used in this presentation. 47 ERICSA 53rd Annual Training Conference & Exposition ▪ May 1 - 5 ▪ Myrtle Beach, South Carolina ERICSA 53rd Annual Training Conference & Exposition ▪ May 1 - 5 ▪ Myrtle Beach, South Carolina 24
