Gerry McGovern

A good link has no time for small talk or niceties. It acts like a signpost, like a promise. With a good link, what you see is what you get.

If most of today’s web links were married they’d be heading for divorce. Because they never keep their promises. “Darling, I’ll home at 10.” But the cad of a link doesn’t come home until 4 in the morning.

The link says, “Launch online application form.” What’s a reasonable expectation? That if you click on the link, an online application form will be launched. So I click. Nothing launches. I just get a page of useless text telling me stuff like: “This is a secure site designed to help customers correctly complete a passport application online.” Well, fancy that.

So I scan the page for a link and I find: “Start application process.” From launch to start, am I moving forward at all? I click on that and arrive at a page whose heading is: “Before you start.” Hello? I already launched, then I started, now this page is telling me that I haven’t even started yet. What’s up?

On another website the link says “Become a member.”

I click on it.

The next link says, “Join.”

I click on it.

The next link on the next page again says, “Join”.

I click on it.

Another page of useless text.

But I’m making progress because the current link says: “Join Now!”

This sort of thing happens all the time.

Why?

Because web teams manage graphics, pages, applications, text, video, animations, portals, personalization, social media, vanity, and internal politics.

Most web teams think about tools and things and units of stuff and what they like and their bosses like. They don’t think about the task of the customer. They don’t feel responsible for helping the customer to easily complete a task.

I talked to a web consultant recently who had found that on one website, 50 percent of the contact requests went unanswered. “That’s not my problem,” was the web manager’s reply. “That’s the responsibility of the Help Desk.” Ah, but it is your problem, Mr Website Manager. You put up the link: “Contact Us.”

You created the form to allow contact.  If your organization is unwilling to get back to people who contact you, here are some alternative ways you could name your link:

• Contact Us (only joking)
• Contact us if you can
• Just try and contact us
• Don’t contact us; we’ll contact you

It’s time to end this Pontius Pilate ‘wash my hands of responsibility‘ kind of website non-management. If the website doesn’t help customers to complete tasks, it hurts the reputation of the web team and it hurts the reputation of the organization.

We click on a link because we want to complete a task. Thinking linking is thinking doing. It is thinking about the customers’ journey as they seek to complete a task. It is about making that journey as simple and fast as possible.

Stop thinking in web pages and what the organization has to do. Start thinking in tasks and what the customer has to do.

Links are New Yorkers.

Straight to the point.

No messing around.

Gerry McGovern

You can read more from Gerry at: http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/

You can now download the FrameMaker 9.0.3 patch.

Mahesh (http://blogs.adobe.com/techcomm over on Adobe does a great job of keeping us up to date with all things FrameMaker. This is available through Adobe Update Manager (AUM). This patch (9.0p250) must be applied on top of 9.0.2 (9.0p237) only. You can check for updates through Help->Updates Menu in FrameMaker.

Manish writes that the following workflows are now enabled and/or supported with this patch:

• API Command — The “New document command” in the quick access bar doesn’t get disconnected from the API command “F_ApiDefineCommand”.
• DITA — On converting DITA map, which contains nested topicrefs, to a book the content of the topic files was hidden in folder templates. In 9.0.3, the folder containing template will be labeled as: []
• DocBook — The starter kit unifies the XML and SGML applications and fixes various formatting inconsistencies in the XML application.
• Fonts — Opening/importing files created in FrameMaker 7.2 with virtual fonts applied to the text now correctly shows the text in FrameMaker 9.
• Markers — The correct Index of Marker(IOM) is generated for a file containing Markers that use structured building blocks.
• Memory — Memory leak shouldn’t happen while creating a book with FrameMaker components from DITA map.
• Message Box — FrameMaker doesn’t crash while displaying a message box during FA_Note_PreQuitBook notification, on the second call of F_ApiUpdateTextInset() and when F_ApiAlert() is called from within a FA_Note_PostQuitDoc notification.
• PreserveEntity FDK client — This can be combined with XSLT in XML applications to preserve variables and special character handling when documents are round-tripped between FrameMaker and XML.
• Spelling Checker — This allows words with special characters to be added to dictionary. It also shows the words with suffix “(s)” as correctly spelled now.
• Table Designer — FrameMaker doesn’t crash on switching on different tabs of table designer when context is set for book and panels are iconized.
• Tables — Table row element hides while using DITAVAL filter.
• User Variables — Deletion of multiple user-variables from Variable Pod should not crash FrameMaker.

Image courtesy of Adobe.com

Structured Documents

Manish adds that in structured document, now you can hide child elements even when in Show state if the parent element is hidden using conditional text. This is an additional option.

How Conditional Text works in FrameMaker 9.0.3

Download PDF on how Conditional Text works in FrameMaker 9.0.3

Get the PDF on Acrobat.com - https://share.acrobat.com

DPI resolution for PNG, JPG and GIF files

Adobe says that the dimensions and default dpi resolution for PNG, JPG and GIF files should not get corrupted when imported in FrameMaker.

FrameMaker 9.0.3 Release Notes

Technical information is at: http://blogs.adobe.com/techcomm/2009/10/framemaker_903_available_now.html

Wording of this technical document

Some of the wording is a bit odd. It refers several times to features that ‘may’ work.

What do they mean it may work? When will it not work? And why not?

Maybe I’m just being picky but these vague statements don’t encourage me to believe that it actually works. It’s more like Adobe is saying “well, whatever, it might work…”

I find this a bit odd. Does it work or not?

C’mon guys!

One of the greatest challenges organizations face is truly understanding the importance of, and managing the completion of, information-based tasks.

I am forever going on about managing the task, not the content or the technology. Once I was speaking at a conference about the importance of managing a website based on task success. A lady put up her hand.

“This task approach sounds interesting but we don’t have any tasks on our website. We just have information.”

“And what sort of website do you have?” I asked.

“A health website,” she replied.

“Let’s say I have a rash on my hand,” I replied. “If I go to a health website, I’m not looking for information. I’m looking to get rid of the rash.”

Many organizations have a strange attitude towards information.

Its creation is nearly always disassociated from its use. Information is rarely seen as useful or purposeful. It’s just there because people need it. It doesn’t help you do things.

It’s simply there for you to read just in case you need some information.

The fact that you need to read some information has no connection with the fact that you need to do something.

Information gets created for information-purposes only.

No liability.

No accountability.

And the job of the people who created the information is finished once they have created it.

They are not even responsible for its findability. Saying it’s up on the Web is enough.

This attitude has driven so many government websites to the point of uselessness. The Freedom of Information Act definitely has good intentions. An unintended consequence, however, is that stuff that serves no useful function, is never maintained, never reviewed and never deleted gets published in large quantities.

But it’s there, this information, because it’s important to have lots and lots of information.

Organizations have a fabulous capacity to produce massive quantities of low grade, aimless, pointless information. Much of the information that should have a point is useless because it is not useable. People don’t understand it. They can’t act on it. It doesn’t result in someone completing a task.

Why do people come to your website? What are they trying to do?

We must reconnect information with its purpose, with its function. Information is supposed to be the communication of intelligence or knowledge.

Telling me how to make a pancake is useless information to me because I don’t want to make a pancake. But if you tell me that, yes, there is a flight from London Heathrow to Dublin at 8.10 pm, then I can use that.

We cannot judge information on the fact that it physically exists in some content form. We must judge it on the results it delivers. To understand what the results should be we must first understand the tasks of the people this information is intended for.

The world we work and live in is becoming more information-based. What that means is that we complete more and more of the tasks of our lives as a result of accessing information. This information is active, driven, purposeful, and measured. How is it measured? By whether it has helped people complete the tasks that they have used this information to help them complete.

Gerry McGovern

Content management solutions: Gerry McGovern

http://www.gerrymcgovern.com

Posted via web from ivanwalsh’s posterous

In this week’s process modeling tutorial, I’m going to look at what do I need to capture in my business process. Some of you have written in asking for more background on what you need to capture in your process maps. Needless to say, it depends on the complexity of the project, but, at a minimum, you’re looking to capture the following.

Business Process Design Template

So, let’s start at the top.

• You need to capture some of the following when developing your processes:
• Time to perform each task
• Time an individual or a resource is available to perform a task
• Cost of the individual/resource
• Probability of occurrence of certain events
• Frequency at which new incidents in the business process are initiated

This is just a starter of what you need to cover. If you need to know more please drop me a line of look under the Process Design section of the site.

FYI: Business Process Design Templates

You can download the completed version of these business process templates over here: http://www.klariti.com/business-process-design-template/.

As I mentioned above, we’ve partnered with Klariti Ltd (www.klariti.com) and released some very detailed Microsoft Word and Visio templates. These are on sale for only $9.99 until month end – it’s the promotional price – and after that they go back up to $29.99. They include process narratives (Word) process maps (Visio) and Excel spreadsheets for controlling your projects.

PS – If you’ve found this article useful, please consider giving us a Digg or StumbleUpon.

Regards,

Ivan

Twitter / Facebook / Flickr / Templates / Tips

In this week’s process modeling tutorial, I’m going to look at what do I need to capture in my business process. Some of you have written in asking for more background on what you need to capture in your process maps. Needless to say, it depends on the complexity of the project, but, at a minimum, you’re looking to capture the following.

Business Process Design Template

So, let’s start at the top.

• You need to capture some of the following when developing your processes:
• Time to perform each task
• Time an individual or a resource is available to perform a task
• Cost of the individual/resource
• Probability of occurrence of certain events
• Frequency at which new incidents in the business process are initiated

This is just a starter of what you need to cover. If you need to know more please drop me a line of look under the Process Design section of the site.

FYI: Business Process Design Templates

You can download the completed version of these business process templates over here: http://www.klariti.com/business-process-design-template/.

As I mentioned above, we’ve partnered with Klariti Ltd (www.klariti.com) and released some very detailed Microsoft Word and Visio templates. These are on sale for only $9.99 until month end – it’s the promotional price – and after that they go back up to $29.99. They include process narratives (Word) process maps (Visio) and Excel spreadsheets for controlling your projects.

PS – If you’ve found this article useful, please consider giving us a Digg or StumbleUpon.

Regards,

Ivan

Twitter / Facebook / Flickr / Templates / Tips

The public website or intranet that keeps screaming for attention with useless images and vain content will get little from the impatient and sceptical customer.

The needs of the organization are great, and the larger and older the organization gets, the greater those needs become. The problem is that the internal needs of the organization rarely match the needs of customers.

Organizations grow strong because they’ve done something right.

Dell is a good example. It grew as a customer centric
organization, but as it got bigger it began to lose that true
customer focus.

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Around 2001, you had two options on the Dell homepage: navigate

by product (laptop, desktop, etc.) or navigate by audience
(home, business, etc.). Every test I have done indicates that
about 90% of people prefer to navigate by product in buying
computer stuff. In fact, audience navigation makes many people
cynical. “Do businesses gets better deals than me?;” I just want
to buy a laptop, why do I have to select what group I belong
to;” “I’m a home business. Which should I select?”

By about 2003, Dell had gotten rid of the product navigation,
forcing the customer to choose an audience. I am told Dell did
this because the audience types mirror the powerful business
units within Dell. These business units could not agree how to
share revenue if someone simply selected “Laptop”.

Dell was once young and customer-centric, but like nearly all
organizations, it grew old and organization-centric. It began to
suffer from organaritis. Similar to arthritis in humans,
organaritis afflicts mainly older organizations. A stiffening of
the joints makes it hard for the organization to change and move
quickly.

There are signs that Dell is trying to recover from organaritis.
Recently, I noticed that it is publishing reviews of its
products on its website. Yes, it allows negative reviews. That
to me is impressive and makes it more likely I will buy a Dell
again. (After what Lenovo has done to the ThinkPad, the choices
have become more limited.)

Does your organization have organaritis? If you answer yes to
one or more of the following questions you probably need to seek
medical help:

• Do you have pictures of very important people within your
organization (your needy children) on your webpages?

• Do these needy children require messages from them to be
published prominently on the site?

• Do you have big pictures of smiling actors pretending to be
customers? (Shiny, happy people.)

• Do you have needy departments whose stated objective in life
is to get some real estate on the homepage?

• Do you have needy, powerful managers who demand that their
latest programs and initiatives get prominence on the
homepage?

• Is your culture one that believes that the primary purpose of
the website is to get customers to do what you want them to do,
rather than help them quickly and easily do what they came to
do?

• Does your organization embrace verbosity atrocities?

Headings such as: “Start your way to a clear new world”.

Sentences such as: “We are delighted to announce that our holistic approach
embraces 50,000 ft thinking which is unparalleled in its reach
and depth of understanding of the globalization challenges that
must be embraced holistically if we are to thrive in
ever-changing, shifting, hazy, somewhat unclear, cloudy, and
sometimes downright quite difficult to see through clearly into
the must be embraced holistic future scenarios.”

Gerry McGovern

Content management solutions: Gerry McGovern

http://www.gerrymcgovern.com

Another part of the process design package is the flowchart diagrams. One area where I’m getting a little stuck is deciding how many swim lanes to add to the Visio diagrams. To get things rolling I have created three Visio diagrams with 2, 3 and 4 swim lanes. Take a look here.

The question is: which one will be business analysts use the most?

Regards,

Ivan

Twitter @ivanwalsh

Admit you have a problem: The first step to recovery is to admit that you are organization-centric. Say it: “We’re organization-centric.”

Take off your coat. You can hang it over there. The evenings are closing in, aren’t they? Have a seat. Have a seat. Tea or coffee? Black or white? I like mine black too. Sugar?

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First off, let me tell you that you’re not alone. I have never met an organization that didn’t suffer from some form of organization-centricity. Your symptoms are mild in comparison to some of the cases I come across.
Why, last week I had a client that couldn’t finish a sentence without a we-we.

They say that the humans have been on this planet for about five million years. Well, for 4,990,000 of those years we survived in small groups. We were described as “shy and murderous”. If we saw a stranger, our impulse was to run from them or murder them.

Sure, sure, we still do that today, but not nearly as much as we used to.

The organization is a group. The customer is a stranger. The customer is not like us. We are genetically programmed to react negatively to the stranger. In the ancient jungle, that was useful. When we came across something or someone that was unfamiliar we had to make fast, gut-instinct choices: Friend or foe? Fight or flight?

So, it is perfectly “natural” to be organization-centric. It is the most natural thing in the world to be. It is normal. What I’m asking you to be is abnormal. I’m asking you to think of the customer first. That is a very hard thing to do. Every day you’ll have to work on it.

But why bother? Why do we have to pay this pesky customer so much attention today?

Some blame the Web. It’s given customers power they never really had before. It’s put knowledge at their fingertips-just a click away. And knowledge is power, they all say. But is it? No, I don’t think so. The application of knowledge-the use of knowledge-is where power lies. And with the Web, customers have an abundance of knowledge to help them make decisions.

Think of it like gut instinct in reverse. Instead of fight or flight, it’s now will I stay or will I go? Only it’s the customer making the decision-in an instinct. The impatient, attention-deficit-syndrome customer comes to your website and makes a gut instinct decision of whether your website is any good or not. To succeed, you’ve got to suppress your gut instinct and embrace the gut instinct of your customer.

Don’t let this get you down. You clearly want to do the right thing. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here. You have made the first step, which means you’ve thought a lot about this. You know that to survive and thrive in the information jungle, you must put the customer first.

You must put the customer first not because it’s the “right”
thing to do. You must put the customer first because if you don’t, the customer will Back-button you from their sight and Delete you from their consciousness.

So, repeat slowly after me: “Customer-centric, not organization-centric … customer-centric, not organization-centric … customer-centric, not organization-centric.”

More coffee?

Gerry McGovern

Content management solutions: Gerry McGovern. http://www.gerrymcgovern.com

Most websites suffer from over-ambition. They try to do too much with few resources. They think they can answer every question.

What is it about the Web that makes us lose sight of reality?
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Perhaps it’s because web teams tend to have lots of idealistic people. These people are imaginative and like to push boundaries.

They were attracted to the Web as a career because it wasn’t like normal business. It was new. It was different, and it offered the opportunity to make a difference.

You can still make a difference on the Web, because a well managed website can make an important contribution to an organization.

However, well-managed websites tend to be those that are narrow in their focus. They do a few things really well rather than attempt to do lots and lots of things.

I tend to deal with large organizations. I can’t remember the last time I met a large organization that I felt had too few webpages.

In fact, I can’t even remember coming across an organization that had just enough webpages.

How do I judge if an organization has too many webpages? If it doesn’t have the staff to professionally manage them.

How do I judge that? By asking a simple question: When was the last time you reviewed all the webpages on your website?

Invariably, I see a look of horror and disbelief. It’s as if I’ve asked a crazy question, a nonsensical question. There’s too much content to review, I’m told. Which, of course, is exactly the problem.

How did it get to a point of too much content? Because the web team was trying to answer too many questions. Because they kept putting up content with the vague idea that it might be useful to someone. Because they were always coming up with exceptions and trying to deal with them.

Have you noticed that the professional, successful web applications are simple and ask you to go through very few steps? When you come across an amateur web application, it invariably has a busy design and asks you to go through lots of steps.

It takes a professional to strip away, to get to the essence of what an application or piece of content really needs to do. The amateur and the inexperienced will complicate. In management, it’s simple to add, but more difficult to subtract.

Stop thinking about the exception. Stop thinking about the audience you’d like to reach. Focus your thinking on the rule.

Focus your thinking on the audience you must reach.

Stop thinking about the customer who comes to your website not quite sure what they want. Instead, relentlessly focus on the customer who comes to your website knowing exactly what they want.

The customers who want to buy from you. How well are you serving these customers?

[ad]

Here’s a simple test.

Find a group of customers who are in the market for one of your key products/services. How easy does your website make it for them to buy?

What are the top three things your most important customers want to do on your website?

Are you absolutely focused on ensuring that they can do these things as quickly and easily as possible?

For your web content management solution, contact Gerry McGovern http://www.gerrymcgovern.com

Snagit has an eye dropper tool that makes it easy to match colors in your capture. Here’s how to use it:

Get more Snagit tips on Twitter @SnagitTips.

Here’s a roundup of some of this week’s news. Next week, I’ll add more info on upcoming XML authoring software releases and the new Google Wave platform.
[ad]
Adobe launches Flash Catalyst tool for rapid UI design

Adobe launched the beta release of Flash Catalyst, a new authoring tool that aims to accelerate the development of rich user interfaces with Flash. The authoring tool is a response to growing demand for more polished enterprise applications. It is intended to complement Adobe’s Flex development tool, which the company has rebranded as Flash Builder.

http://arstechnica.com

Google Docs now supports MS Office 2007 file formats

Google added support for Microsoft’s Word and Excel 2007 default file formats to its online Docs office suite. Support for PowerPoint 2007’s file format remains out in the cold. The firm has added .docx and .xlsx to the list of file formats Google Docs accepts for uploading documents.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/

How to Write Release Notes?
Our partners site, Klariti.com, released a series of articles on how to write release notes. “Release Notes cover what’s new, download and installation instructions, known issues and frequently asked questions. Creating Release Notes is fairly straightforward. Create a Release Notes template and re-use it on each release.”

http://www.klariti.com/release-notes-templates/how-to-create-release-notes.shtml

Jing Pro Released to mixed reviews
Techsmith, the makers of Snagit and Camtasia, two of my favorite technical writing tools, released a premium version of Jing, it’s online screen capture software. Feedback was mixed from the tech writing community.

Official Jing blog here: http://blog.jingproject.com and our review over
http://www.ivanwalsh.com/2009/06/review-jing-pro-–-record-hd-quality-videos-for-youtube/

5 Things I Want to Know about Project Natal

Microsoft released Project Natal, a motion sensing device that allows you to control video games and Xbox 360 menus with your body instead of a peripheral controller. Natal gives you voice and full-body motion control over your on-screen avatar using an RGB camera, depth sensor, multi-array microphone, and custom processor running proprietary software. Microsoft released the Project Natal software development kit to game makers who want to incorporate Natal functionality into their products.

http://www.pcworld.com

Hulu Desktop for Mac, PC

Hulu Labs lets you play with new products and services as they are almost ready for prime time. Among the new toys of everyone’s favorite piracy-busting online video service is Hulu Desktop, a bona fide client for the service running on both Mac OS X and Windows computers. Hulu Desktop delivers Hulu straight to your desktop with no browser required (though you will need Flash installed). Hulu Desktop is wrapped with a media-center-like bow, with a customized “lean-back” UI that can run full screen and even respond to Apple Remotes and Windows Media Center remotes.

Microsoft select St. Paul for Silverlight Offices

Gita Sitaramiah reports that Microsoft has leased space at Wells Fargo Place in St. Paul, for a software development office. The tech giant had also considered locating in Minneapolis, where it currently is operating in temporary quarters. Initially, Microsoft is leasing around 12,000 square feet of space on the 24th floor of the Wells Fargo tower, employing 26 people at the start. The St. Paul office is a key part of Microsoft’s intent to build around Silverlight, a Web browser application that competes with Adobe Flash.

http://www.twincities.com/ci_12511706?source=most_emailed

Review of Groundswell – Winning in a world transformed by social technologies

Groundswell was our book of the week and well worth a look if you want to get an insight into how social media works on a business level. In other words: how to make money from social media. Customers are writing about your products on blogs and recutting your commercials on YouTube.

They’re defining you on Wikipedia and ganging up on you in social networking sites like Facebook. These are all elements of a social phenomenon — the groundswell — that has created a permanent, long-lasting shift in the way the world works. Most companies see it as a threat. You can see it as an opportunity.”

http://www.ivanwalsh.com/2009/06/review-of-groundswell-winning-in-a-world-transformed-by-social-technologies/

Why Google Squared Makes Bing Look Good

Google Squared is a specialized search engine that creates meaningful data from large data sources and lets you compare this information by adding different attributes. Think Excel+Wikipedia+Search Engine = Google Squared. This is not Google’s finest hour by any means. Take a look at some of the results it produced.

http://www.ivanwalsh.com/2009/06/google-squared-confirm-that-richard-nixon-was-a-quaker-obama-is-a-zombie-president/

Linux/Java-based Android platform to the MIPS architecture

Technical writers with an interest in Android and open source may be interested in this. Embedded Alley completed its port of the Linux/Java-based Android platform to the MIPS architecture. The Embedded Alley Development System for Android-based Devices initially targets devices ranging from set-top boxes (STBs) to industrial equipment running the MIPS-based RMI Au1250 processor. The Embedded Alley Development System for Android-based Devices is available now. http://www.linuxdevices.com

DITA webinar
FierceContentManagement are putting on a webinar on Thursday June 11th at 2:00 pm ET called Using DITA to Streamline Your Workflow. The webinar is sponsored by Just Systems and features Gilbane Group analysts and DITA experts, Bill Trippe and Dale Waldt.

http://www.fiercecontentmanagement.com

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Mark Poston, Senior Technical Consultant, at Mekon Ltd, describes how deploying DITA tools is not only possible, but can greatly improve the efficiency of your business.  For years organizations have wanted to get Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) creating Business Documentation in XML so it can be single-sourced and reused in various scenarios. DITA XML has proven usable, practical and effective where traditional XML has struggled to gain ground.

This case study is for anyone involved in the process of creation, publishing and delivering of different types of business document by non technical and distributed authors.  Mark will explain how the solution allows editors to manage each report from creation, management of copyright permissions, to final publication to print and digital distribution, reducing costs and increasing efficiency.

Mark will discuss the scalable solution adopted by Key Note Ltd., a leading market research company in the UK, who wanted to improve their efficiency by moving to an XML-based editorial system.  Authors and editors are supplied with a familiar and easy to use Word environment for authoring XML content. They have the ability to dynamically render charts, import tables from Microsoft Excel, and create outputs in a number of formats.

Duration: 60 minutes
Cost: Free

In this free Webinar you will learn how through the use XML technologies to improve efficiencies in:

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Watch this free DITA Webinar

This case study describes how Applied Voice & Speech Technologies, Inc. (AVST) significantly streamlined its delivery of documentation and training materials with MadCap Flare.

Results of Case Study

AVST reduced documentation and training project time by 50% with MadCap Flare.

Using MadCap’s multi-channel publishing software, AVST no longer needs to use four applications to create the Administrator’s Guide, Online Help, and Training Guide.

Instead, Flare generates the content for all three AVST deliverables. The single-source publishing capabilities in Flare also have removed the need for AVST to purchase a content management system (CMS) costing tens of thousands of dollars more.

Aims of Case Study

"With MadCap, the output for all three deliverables is virtually flawless. Headings, the table of contents, cover page, and other elements all appear automatically without any manual manipulation after the fact," said Chris Sullivan, AVST director of training and documentation. "Moreover, because our content updates occur in a single project, rather than four separate projects, the resulting output is generated in just a few minutes – saving us hours of updates, edits, revisions, and formatting."

Reasons for Changing to MadCap Flare

For more than 25 years, AVST has produced a range of business communications applications, each of which requires administrator documentation, a training guide, and online Help system.

Prior to implementing Flare, Sullivan recalled, "It was tedious. Every time we had new information, we had to update the content fields in several applications. Compounding matters, some of our documentation was localized in 13 different languages, and those localizations had to be completed using these different applications. It was an extremely complex process."

"Now, by producing all three documentation deliverables in a single Flare project, we’re seeing immediate savings," Sullivan says. "We simply have reviewers provide their feedback in a Word document, and we incorporate the changes into Flare. Similarly, translations are now completed using a single Flare project. Not only are these processes faster, they’re also more accurate."

Cost Savings

AVST recently completed a cost savings analysis for producing single-sourced documentation with Flare.

• The Online Help, which provided the core content, took 190 hours to develop, review, revise and produce.
• Previously, completing the Administrator’s Guide and Administrator’s Training Guide would then require another 99.2 hours each (198.4 hours total).
• However, because AVST was able to repurpose 50 percent of the topics in Flare, the documents only took 8.3 hours each (16.6 hours total) to produce, resulting in a total savings of 181.8 hours.

With project-related labor costs averaging $50 per hour, AVST was able to save $9,088 producing one set of documentation.

The AVST analysis does not account for the added benefit of eliminating the need for a Content Management System (CMS), which would have added tens of thousands of dollars in license fees and hundreds of person-hours.

"The cost evaluation showed that our copies of MadCap Flare basically paid for themselves with just one set of single-sourced documentation," Sullivan said. "Equally important, our writers are achieving faster delivery to support the many tight turnaround situations we face each year."

Flare’s Most Valuable Features

Widely used features in Flare include variables and conditional tables of contents. Variables have significantly cut the time it takes to customize documentation for its OEM partner, changing all of the names in order to re-brand the materials. Meanwhile conditional tables of contents for topics mean AVST simply needs to hide topics that the company is not using for the print version or vice versa. AVST also makes extensive use of pop-ups to give readers the option of expanded in-line text.

Next Steps

AVST is now starting to use MadCap XEdit to further streamline the review process and keep all edits and comments in a single project. Following that, AVST also plans to implement the MadCap Team Server, which will facilitate collaboration among the company’s distributed team of writers.

This case study describes how Applied Voice & Speech Technologies, Inc. (AVST) significantly streamlined its delivery of documentation and training materials with MadCap Flare.

Results of Case Study

AVST reduced documentation and training project time by 50% with MadCap Flare.

Using MadCap’s multi-channel publishing software, AVST no longer needs to use four applications to create the Administrator’s Guide, Online Help, and Training Guide.

Instead, Flare generates the content for all three AVST deliverables. The single-source publishing capabilities in Flare also have removed the need for AVST to purchase a content management system (CMS) costing tens of thousands of dollars more.

Aims of Case Study

"With MadCap, the output for all three deliverables is virtually flawless. Headings, the table of contents, cover page, and other elements all appear automatically without any manual manipulation after the fact," said Chris Sullivan, AVST director of training and documentation. "Moreover, because our content updates occur in a single project, rather than four separate projects, the resulting output is generated in just a few minutes – saving us hours of updates, edits, revisions, and formatting."

Reasons for Changing to MadCap Flare

For more than 25 years, AVST has produced a range of business communications applications, each of which requires administrator documentation, a training guide, and online Help system.

Prior to implementing Flare, Sullivan recalled, "It was tedious. Every time we had new information, we had to update the content fields in several applications. Compounding matters, some of our documentation was localized in 13 different languages, and those localizations had to be completed using these different applications. It was an extremely complex process."

"Now, by producing all three documentation deliverables in a single Flare project, we’re seeing immediate savings," Sullivan says. "We simply have reviewers provide their feedback in a Word document, and we incorporate the changes into Flare. Similarly, translations are now completed using a single Flare project. Not only are these processes faster, they’re also more accurate."

Cost Savings

AVST recently completed a cost savings analysis for producing single-sourced documentation with Flare.

• The Online Help, which provided the core content, took 190 hours to develop, review, revise and produce.
• Previously, completing the Administrator’s Guide and Administrator’s Training Guide would then require another 99.2 hours each (198.4 hours total).
• However, because AVST was able to repurpose 50 percent of the topics in Flare, the documents only took 8.3 hours each (16.6 hours total) to produce, resulting in a total savings of 181.8 hours.

With project-related labor costs averaging $50 per hour, AVST was able to save $9,088 producing one set of documentation.

The AVST analysis does not account for the added benefit of eliminating the need for a Content Management System (CMS), which would have added tens of thousands of dollars in license fees and hundreds of person-hours.

"The cost evaluation showed that our copies of MadCap Flare basically paid for themselves with just one set of single-sourced documentation," Sullivan said. "Equally important, our writers are achieving faster delivery to support the many tight turnaround situations we face each year."

Flare’s Most Valuable Features

Widely used features in Flare include variables and conditional tables of contents. Variables have significantly cut the time it takes to customize documentation for its OEM partner, changing all of the names in order to re-brand the materials. Meanwhile conditional tables of contents for topics mean AVST simply needs to hide topics that the company is not using for the print version or vice versa. AVST also makes extensive use of pop-ups to give readers the option of expanded in-line text.

Next Steps

AVST is now starting to use MadCap XEdit to further streamline the review process and keep all edits and comments in a single project. Following that, AVST also plans to implement the MadCap Team Server, which will facilitate collaboration among the company’s distributed team of writers.

A recent survey by Scriptorium Publishing found that most technical writers will be working in a structured authoring environment by 2010. Structured authoring is a publishing workflow that defines and automatically enforces consistent organization of information. Implementations are generally based on Extensible Markup Language (XML).

Sarah O’Keefe, President, Scriptorium Publishing says, “This survey shows that our anecdotal experiences, such as the importance of change management, match the industry situation.”

In the February 2009, 600 responses cited content reuse, document consistency, and cost/effort of developing content as the primary factors driving them into structured authoring.

The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) standard was the dominant standard employed. Nearly 40 percent of existing implementations and approximately 60 percent of in-progress and planned implementations are based on DITA.

• 90 percent reported that they had improved document consistency.
• 86 percent were successful in content reuse, and
• 70 percent reduced the cost and effort of developing content.

When asked about implementation problems, 37 percent cited difficulties with project management, including “failure to plan” and “insufficient analysis.”

Change management was a significant concern. Of the 16 percent who did not plan to implement structured authoring, one third cited the inability of the staff to adjust to a new authoring environment as a factor. 56-page report is available from Scriptorium Publishing for $200.