Designing technical documentation for tablets

© 2012 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved. Adobe Confidential.

Designing technical documentation for tablets

Ellis Pratt | Director | Twitter @ellispratt | www.cherrylear.com | ellis@cherryleaf.com

Maxwell Hoffmann | Adobe Product Evangelist | Twitter @maxwellhoffmann | mhoffman@adobe.com

© 2012 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved.

About Adobe

2

74 Offices in 43 Countries

Corporate Headquarters in San Jose, California

Founded in December 1982

$4.2 billion in revenue in FY2011

More than 10,000 employees

Adobe donates a minimum of 1% of net income to philanthropy

We simplify complicated, inefficient, and expensive workflows. We enable more engaging, compelling content. We drive greater return from digital media and marketing investments.

© 2012 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved. Adobe Confidential.

About Maxwell Hoffmann

3

Maxwell Hoffmann Product Evangelist, Tech Comm Suite

Former Product Manager and Sales Training Director for Frame Technology

15 years in translation industry, working on “whatever documents walked through the door”

Trained over 1,200 people in hands-on, scalable publishing solutions

© 2012 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved. Adobe Confidential.

About our Guest Thought Leader

4

Ellis Pratt Director and co-owner of Cherryleaf

Based close to London’s Heathrow Airport

Working in Technical Communications since circa 1996(!)

Designing technical documentation

for tablets

Adobe Webinar Ellis Pratt Cherryleaf

What we’ll cover

1. About me

2. What makes tablet devices different?

3, 4 & 5. Three uses of tablets, from a techcomms view

6. A SIMPLES strategy

1. About me

Director of Cherryleaf

UK technical writing services company My experience is of technical communication in:

• UK and Europe • IT & medical equipment

Workshops on writing for Web-based apps, iPads & DITA

QuickTime™ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

2. What makes tablet devices different?

What we’ll cover

The competitors

Why are tablets popular?

We need to abandon some assumptions

The competitors

Why a tablet? Intuitive to use (almost)

Long battery life

Portability

Bring Your Own Device

Retina screen

Weight

Always on

We need to abandon some assumptions

The screen

“Retina” displays

Greater contrast on screens

Closer to paper than a screen

Tablet screen sizes can differ

Abandoning Assumptions

“The TOC must be on the left”

“Scrolling vertically is better”

Michael Campbell

Abandoning Assumptions

“ As designers, we tend to think that people start at the top left and just move left to right and down the page.

But research shows that isn’t what happens.

People are attracted primarily to contrast, which is one of the key visual principles that has been studied by researchers again and again.

Contrast is created by differences in light and dark, thick and thin, big and small.

For example, headings that are bolder than the text, pictures that are big in relation to small pictures. ”

Karen Schriver

Can we use print composition theories?

Kress and Van Leeuven

We can do things differently

Some print composition techniques now work on screen

We can use a horizontal, paper metaphor

Right-sided navigation is now possible

We can do things differently

“Deep learning” on screen is now possible

It’s haptic

Device can vibrate

Device can be aware of user’s location

You can pinch and zoom to view some content

Three uses of tablets, from a techcomms view

Mobile apps

Mobile web

Mobile documents

3.Mobile apps

Smaller, more focused apps

Often familiar to user

Touch terminology

“First user” Help

App abandonment

Many used only 3-4 times

Help moves to the product description

First user interaction Help

Limited traditional online Help

Leave the app to read Help

Limited help “tools”

Advice from Apple

No settled standards

We need Help, but not as we know it

Flow-based User Assistance

Flow-based User Assistance

Don’t break the user’s flow

Guide and pre-empt

= Help is embedded in the product

Flow-based User Assistance

Assistance is provided in context

It’s aware of the user’s situation

Can advise on a good choice

Apple’s Help patent

April 2012

Apple’s Help “templates”

Carousel view

Shake to change

3D Zoetrope

Gallery of Help examples

www.g2meyer.com/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=5893

4. Mobile Web

Web-based apps

Usually requires a connection to the internet

Can look like an app on the desktop

Or accessed via the browser

Web-based apps You’ll still have:

• Retina screen

• Portrait and landscape mode

• Touch and haptic interactions

when HTML5 is adopted

Web-based apps

You don’t need to learn Objective C

So is there Help in Web-based apps?

There is lots of Help, (under different names)

It is embedded in the applications

H/T Briana Wherry, Alfresco

Social Help

There is a social element

• Co coaching

• Social proof

H/T Brian Wherry & Robert Cialdini

5. Mobile documents

Types of mobile documents

Electronic Flight Bag

Student text books

Magazines

Operations manuals

Two competing models

Format and content are inseparable Publishing

Format and content are separate issues

Technical Publications

2 competing models

“We’re about to usher in a golden age of PDFs on the

iPad.”

Paul Ford @fttrain

via Karen McGrane

PDFs work well

Read in Adobe Reader iBooks, etc

Can pinch and zoom

Large file size?

EPUB

Formatting can be an issue

Tables

Images

Videos must be .mp4 (mv4) format

EPUB in the future?

Embedded fonts

CSS3

Nested tables

Boxed elements

SVG graphics

Text popups

Fixed layouts

HTML5

You can save pages offline

in theory

What about mediums for structured content?

HTML5 may be your best bet

6. A SIMPLES strategy

A SIMPLES strategy Scaleable (to different sizes)

Intuitive to the user

Mobile-friendly

Platform-agnostic

Legalese (right for the platform)

Engaging (to the user)

Single sourced (re-usable, extensible content) H/T Keren Okman, SAP

Summary

Plus ça change (plus c'est la même chose)? User Assistance will still be there, but in different places

We’ll need to deliver content on different devices, in different formats

We’ll be using some new (old) design metaphors

Help Authoring tools and HTML5 will solve a lot of the problems we see today

Blatant plugs

Q4 Workshops on writing for Web-based apps, iPads & DITA Free monthly newsletter Cherryleaf.com/blog

For more information

ellis@cherryleaf.com

Questions?

End

(c) Cherryleaf 2012

© 2012 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved.

Upcoming Adobe TechComm Webinars

Content Scenarios for Exploring New Information Products, Joe Gollner, 27 June

Find Out How to Write XSLT Statements for XML to XML Transformations in a 5-part eSeminars Series, 28 June to 19 July, Tom Aldous

Expand Your Content Reuse Potential through Indirect Addressing: Using @keys-based Referencing in DITA 1.2 – Nancy Harrison, 11 July

Are You Tempted to Use a Template to Expedite Policies & Procedure Development? Raymond Urgo – 12 July

Are you struggling to create long, complex documents with Microsoft Word? There is a much easier way! – Tom Aldous, 13 July

Part II: Creating an Accessible Layout – Tips to make documents more accessible (structure, colors, fonts, more) – Char James-Tanney, 17 July,

Part III: Developing Accessible Content – Tips on grammar, paragraph, and sentence length, alternate text, and more – Char James-Tanney, 31 July

55

Calendar of upcoming eSeminars: http://adobe.ly/xdzOYa

© 2012 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved.

Questions and Answers

56

© 2012 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved. Adobe Confidential.

Contact Information

57

Information Ellis Pratt Cherryleaf

Blog Cherryleaf.com/blog Twitter http://twitter.com/ellispratt Email ellis@cherryleaf.com Web http://cherryleaf.com

Maxwell Hoffmann Adobe Systems, Inc. Product Evangelist

Blog blogs.adobe.com/techcomm Blog blogs.adobe.com/mbhoffmann Twitter twitter.com/maxwellhoffmann

Email mhoffman@adobe.com Web www.adobe.com LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/maxwellhoffmann Facebook maxwell.hoffmann1 Facebook As Adobe Technical Communication Professionals Group

Previously recorded eSeminars: http://adobe.ly/qo3pzc

Calendar of upcoming eSeminars: http://adobe.ly/xdzOYa