The #1 Guide to Excellence in Technical Communication—Fully Updated for Embedded Assistance, Mobile, Search, Multimedia, and More
Direct from IBM’s own content design experts, this guide shows you how to design product interfaces and technical information that always place users front and center. This edition has been fully revised to help you consistently deliver the right content at the right time.
You’ll master today’s best practices to apply nine essential characteristics of high-quality technical information: accuracy, clarity, completeness, concreteness, organization, retrievability, style, task orientation, and visual effectiveness.
Coverage Includes
- Advocating for users throughout the entire product development process
- Delivering information in an ordered manner by following progressive disclosure techniques
- Optimizing content so that users can find it from anywhere
- Streamlining information for mobile delivery
- Helping users right where they are
Whether you’re a writer, editor, information architect, user experience professional, or reviewer, this book shows you how to create great technical information, from the product design to the user interface, topics, and other media.
- Thoroughly revised and updated
- Extensive new coverage of self-documenting interfaces and embedded assistance
- Updated practical guidelines and checklists
- Hundreds of new examples
Table of Contents:
Preface xvii
Acknowledgments xix
About the authors xxiii
Part 1. Introduction 1
Chapter 1. Technical information continues to evolve 3
Embedded assistance 4
Progressive disclosure of information 9
The technical writer’s role today 11
Redefining quality technical information 13
Chapter 2. Developing quality technical information 15
Preparing to write: understanding users, goals, and product tasks 16
Writing and rewriting 17
Reviewing, testing, and evaluating technical information 19
Part 2. Easy to use 21
Chapter 3. Task orientation 23
Write for the intended audience 25
Present information from the users’ point of view 27
Focus on users’ goals 32
Identify tasks that support users’ goals 33
Write user-oriented task topics, not function-oriented task topics 35
Avoid an unnecessary focus on product features 41
Indicate a practical reason for information 46
Provide clear, step-by-step instructions 49
Make each step a clear action for users to take 51
Group steps for usability 53
Clearly identify steps that are optional or conditional 58
Task orientation checklist 64
Chapter 4. Accuracy 67
Research before you write 69
Verify information that you write 74
Maintain information currency 79
Keep up with technical changes 79
Avoid writing information that will become outdated 82
Maintain consistency in all information about a subject 86
Reuse information when possible 86
Avoid introducing inconsistencies 88
Use tools that automate checking for accuracy 93
Accuracy checklist 96
Chapter 5. Completeness 99
Make user interfaces self-documenting 101
Apply a pattern for disclosing information 107
Cover all subjects that support users’ goals and only those subjects 115
Create an outline or topic model 115
Include only information based on user goals 118
Make sure concepts and reference topics support the goals 122
Cover each subject in only as much detail as users need 123
Provide appropriate detail for your users and their experience level 123
Include enough information 130
Include only necessary information 136
Repeat information only when users will benefit from it 141
Completeness checklist 148
Part 3. Easy to understand 151
Chapter 6. Clarity 153
Focus on the meaning 155
Eliminate wordiness 161
Write coherently 174
Avoid ambiguity 180
Use words as only one part of speech 180
Avoid empty words 183
Use words with a clear meaning 187
Write positively 189
Make the syntax of sentences clear 194
Use pronouns correctly 199
Place modifiers appropriately 201
Use technical terms consistently and appropriately 205
Decide whether to use a term 205
Use terms consistently 207
Define each term that is new to the intended audience 210
Clarity checklist 212
Chapter 7. Concreteness 215
Consider the skill level and needs of users 220
Use concreteness elements that are appropriate for the information type 223
Use focused, realistic, and up-to-date concreteness elements 240
Use scenarios to illustrate tasks and to provide overviews 243
Make code examples and samples easy to use 247
Set the context for examples and scenarios 251
Use similes and analogies to relate unfamiliar information to familiar information 253
Use specific language 256
Concreteness checklist 259
Chapter 8. Style 261
Use active and passive voice appropriately 263
Convey the right tone 267
Avoid gender and cultural bias 273
Spell terms consistently and correctly 276
Use proper capitalization 280
Use consistent and correct punctuation 284
Apply consistent highlighting 296
Make elements parallel 302
Apply templates and reuse commonly used expressions 305
Use consistent markup tagging 311
Style checklist 314
Part 4. Easy to find 317
Chapter 9. Organization 319
Put information where users expect it 322
Separate contextual information from other types of information 324
Separate contextual information into the appropriate type of embedded assistance 332
Separate noncontextual information into discrete topics by type 337
Arrange elements to facilitate navigation 345
Organize elements sequentially 350
Organize elements consistently 354
Reveal how elements fit together 360
Emphasize main points; subordinate secondary points 366
Organization checklist 376
Chapter 10. Retrievability 379
Optimize for searching and browsing 381
Use clear, descriptive titles 381
Use keywords effectively 384
Optimize the table of contents for scanning 389
Guide users through the information 394
Link appropriately 399
Link to essential information 400
Avoid redundant links 405
Use effective wording for links 409
Provide helpful entry points 413
Retrievability checklist 420
Chapter 11. Visual effectiveness 421
Apply visual design practices to textual elements 424
Use graphics that are meaningful and appropriate 431
Illustrate significant tasks and concepts 431
Make information interactive 441
Use screen captures judiciously 448
Apply a consistent visual style 460
Use visual elements to help users find what they need 467
Ensure that visual elements are accessible to all users 478
Visual effectiveness checklist 483
Part 5. Putting it all together 485
Chapter 12. Applying more than one quality characteristic 487
Applying quality characteristics to progressively disclosed information 488
Applying quality characteristics to information for an international audience 494
Applying quality characteristics to topic-based information 501
Chapter 13. Reviewing, testing, and evaluating technical information 515
Reviewing technical information 516
Testing information for usability 518
Testing technical information 524
Editing and evaluating technical information 527
Reading and editing the information 531
Reviewing the visual elements 536
Part 6. Appendixes 543
Appendix A. Quality checklist 545
Appendix B. Who checks which characteristics? 549
Glossary 555
Resources and references 565
Index 573
About the Author :
The authors are all long-standing and respected members of the information development community at IBM. Although the authors have served in various roles throughout their careers, information quality has always been and continues to be their primary focus.
Michelle Carey is an information architect and technical editor at IBM and has taught technical communication at University of California Santa Cruz Extension. Michelle is the co-author of the book DITA Best Practices: A Roadmap for Writing, Editing, and Architecting in DITA. She is an expert on topic-based information systems, software product error messages, grammar, embedded assistance for user interfaces, and writing for international audiences. She also writes computational linguistic rules for a grammar, style, and terminology management tool. Michelle enjoys teaching, grammar, herding cats, and riding and driving anything with a lot of horsepower.
Moira McFadden Lanyi is an information architect and technical editor at IBM. She has experience with topic-based writing, DITA, embedded assistance, user interface design, and visual design. She created 99% of the artwork in this book. She is a co-author of the book An Introduction to IMS. Moira enjoys visiting San Francisco with her family as often as possible, cooking fresh, healthy meals, and watching her courageous son ride his unicycle and surf.
Deirdre Longo is an information architect and strategist at IBM. She has been a pioneer for embedded assistance in IBM: defining the scope of that term, developing standards for embedded assistance, and modeling how to work effectively in cross-disciplinary teams. She has taught webinars for the Society of Technical Communication (STC) and published articles on information architecture topics in STC’s Intercom. She is an avid yoga practitioner.
Eric Radzinski is a technical editor and information architect for industry-leading mainframe database software at IBM. He is a co-author of The IBM Style Guide: Conventions for Writers and Editors and is well versed in topic-based writing, embedded assistance, DITA, and writing for a global audience. Eric makes his home in San Jose, California, with his wife and their three children.
Shannon Rouiller is an information architect and technical editor at IBM. She has experience with quality metrics, topic-based information systems, DITA, videos, embedded assistance, and user interface design. She is a co-author of the book Designing Effective Wizards. Shannon dabbles in sports photography and likes to solve puzzles.
Elizabeth Wilde is an information quality strategist at IBM, developing strategies and education for developing high-quality content. She develops Acrolinx computational linguistic rules that enforce grammar, style, and DITA tagging rules. She teaches an extension course in technical writing at the University of California Santa Cruz. Her hobbies include growing cacti and succulents and collecting tattoos.
