Google Docs, updates, and the user  Clip to Evernote

Aaron and I use Google Docs (as well as other Google applications) quite extensively. We joke that we’ve quaffed a lot of Google’s Kool Aid, and like it so much that we always come back for more.

Our main reasons for using Google Docs are its ease of access and its simplicity. Wherever we are, we can work on notes and drafts and articles and more as long as we have a wireless Internet connection. If not, then we can work offline using Google Gears. On top of that, Google Docs is easy to use and has just the features we need.

Over the last couple of years, I’ve read complaints in various blogs about how Google Docs (and other Google apps) aren’t updated with big, splashy features — compared to, say, rivals like Yahoo! Mail or Zoho Office. Google handles changes to its applications in the right way: one that has little apparent impact on the user.

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It shouldn’t be us versus them  Clip to Evernote

In the various development shops in which I’ve worked over the years, I noticed polarized attitudes towards users. In couple of the shops, developers really went out of their way to address the needs of the users. They listened to the concerns of their users, tried to give them the features that they wanted, and fix usability problems with the application. They didn’t always succeed, but many of the customers appreciated the effort.

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How useful are tooltips in online help?  Clip to Evernote

Recently, a colleague sent me a document detailing the DITA message specialization. The document is an HTML Help file, and I noticed that many of the links in the file (which described certain DITA elements) had tooltips which appeared when I held the mouse pointer over them.

tooltip.pngI viewed the source of one of the topics in the file, and discovered that the author of the document had added the HTML title attribute to the links, along with a description of each DITA element. It was a simple and effective solution, one which didn’t require any scripting. Overall, it was a nice touch.

Then, I began to wonder how useful something like this actually is.

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Fostering user and author collaboration  Clip to Evernote

As was discussed in a previous post, users can be an excellent source of information and of documentation. One of the key problems is how to get the community of users involved.

This article looks at the problem from the perspective of educating new users. The author points out:

… the value in educational content lies in context (what immediate problem the reader is trying to solve) and timeliness (what’s true today will be outdated tomorrow). Value no longer lies in the traits associated organization, pace, and tone as in traditional books.

Musings on user-generated documentation  Clip to Evernote

User-generated documentation is a big issue in technical communication circles. Aaron and I have discussed this topic on and off over the last couple of years, but really haven’t come to a definitive conclusion on the merits of user-generated documentation.

However, this post at Craig Haiss’ Helpscribe blog got me thinking once again about taking advantage of the knowledge of users. If properly done, tapping into the knowledge of users can improve the quality and breadth of your documentation.

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