make it all about your audience (deliver what they want, how they want, when they want)

Bernard Aschwanden

www.publ ishingsmarter.com

bernard@publ ishingsmarter.com

Audience focused delivery

12:25

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@publishsmarter

Overall Objectives

12:25@publishsmarter

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It's all about the audience.

Discussions abound about the informed consumer,

audience metrics, and personas, but how do you

actually organize and create content geared to

multiple audiences?

Learn tips and techniques for planning, writing, and

publishing which help you deliver the right

information, to the right audience, in the right format,

at the right time, and let them make the right

decisions.

Housekeeping and note taking


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A/V concerns: Turn off other

apps that hog bandwidth

Not all slides or topics are

equally weighted

Use some, discard others

Slides speed varies

(reference)

Questions? Ask along the

way!

I’d love to claim errors/typos

is on purpose… they isn’t,

ain’t, and weren’t never;

however, I’ll fix ‘em as I

About your speaker


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Publishing Smarter: President

Content strategist, publishing technologies expert, author, and geek-enough

Certified Technical Trainer

DITA

Content management

Topic-based writing

Society for Technical Communication

Past President

STC Associate Fellow

Solving business problems through communication


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We help clients: By helping clients:

Standard disclaimer


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In the interest of brevity I

will make some blanket

statements to keep it

simple

It’s not all 100% “the truth”,

but I’ll stay close

Purists may complain

And they are wrong!

(except when they are right)

These slides are to guide

you, not to write rules in

stone

Thinking about your user

@publishsmarter 12:25

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A few easy steps

What do differing audiences want?


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Tailored content

Not “the complete dummies guide to using a Windows or

Macintosh or Linux system from novice to expert and

covering what a mouse is as well as how to configure server

blades as a PDC or BDC for web hosting”

Instead, they want to get content that is specific

To their product

To their platform

To their abilities

Actually, they don’t want that at all. What they want

is…

They want you to get rid of the problem


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Stuff to work

Stop writing content, start to solve the problem

If you TRULY want to deliver what the audience

wants, focus on reducing their need for

documentation

If you can’t reduce their need for it, reduce the volume

If you must deliver to many audiences at once, give

them as little content as possible, as focused as

possible

Document review


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Start by reading your content

ID what can go away, and do so early

The less to review and clean up in detail, the better

Why write product specific content at all?

If I am reading “Microsoft Word 2020 for Windows 10 User

Guide” I don’t need to see “You can save a file in Microsoft

Word 2020 for Windows 10” as a sentence.

I defy you to tell me what software the following slide

is documenting!

Print (for every software tool, ever)


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Searched Google for ‘how to print word’


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Got this as the first hit... (ARGH)


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https://support.office.com/en-ca/article/Printing-and-print-preview-1c15515c-98b5-4421-baa9-68b7a870398a

Includes a video on how to print, plus Access


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Excel, OneNote, and Outlook


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PowerPoint and Project


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Publisher, Visio


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And finally, Word... (oh, go somewhere else)


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And once there, I can scroll down


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And continue to scroll down


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I got annoyed MAKING these slides


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Here it is. Finally.


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What I finally foundWhat I suggest about a day

ago

Follow these steps to print a document.

1. Click the File tab, and then click Print.TIP To go back to your document and make changes before you print it, click the File tab.

2. The properties for your default printer automatically appear in the first section. When the properties for your printer and document appear the way that you want them to, click Print to print the document.NOTE To change the properties for your printer, under the printer name, click Printer Properties.

Print content

Prerequisite: Ensure a file is open, a printer configured, and that you have a martini ready!

1. Select File > Print.Specify options, if required.

2. Click Print.

It’s that easy. Now have a martini.

Let’s compare approaches and content


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And the sad thing is...


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Every. Single. Screen. Was. The. Same. Info

Or at least, it could have been

Even that wasn’t the case: Access: 1. Click the File tab, and then click Print.

ExcelFor information about previewing and printing in Excel, see:

Preview worksheet pages before printing

Print a worksheet or workbook

OneNote: 1. Click the File tab, and then click Print.

Most others follow that standard.

In most: 2. When the properties for your printer and document appear the way that you want them to, click Print.

Is i t the tools we use?


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What is the solution?

One part is the tools we use


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Tools are part of the problem, but a small part

The biggest issues are: Legacy: But we always wrote it that way. (Um, we also “always” did

…)

People: They think they know what your users want. They don’t. At least, not if there isn’t research.

So, before we get to anything with software, deal with history and the people in the organization

Review the past, learn from it

Attend conferences or webinars, learn from them

Talk to users, learn from them

Watch how people (users, partners, competitors) do things, and learn from them

Paragraph design


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When publishing to online outputs, you can drop entire paragraph types, so organize information well Step

StepInfo

StepExample

StepResult

Don’t write this: Select File > Print, and in the dialog box that appears, specify options, if required, and then click Print. It’s that easy. Now have a martini.

Break content into logical components Easier to find

Easier to update (look/feel)

Easier to publish

Yes, you can do a lot of this in Microsoft Word as well!

Conditional content


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Use conditional text for Comments

Watermarks

Revision tracking (compare docs)

Set up conditions Avoid overlapping if possible, but is supported

If using FrameMaker and structure Manage conditions using elements, attributes and values

Automatically apply conditions to content

DITA also uses attributes and ditaval files

Microsoft Word and conditions… Not so much!

Variables


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Yes, it’s cool to be able to swap out the product

name

Or the audience, or even the platform

Now that we know it’s cool, avoid it

You are using a tool really, really well when you do

this, but solving a problem that simply should go

away

Longer term considerat ions


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Working with multiple

documents

Text insets


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Repeated phrases

Simple content in headers or footers

Consider format choices when importing

Develop multiple text flows in a single document to store repeated phrases

If using DITA: Review the use of conref

Books


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Consider using books and sharing files, or reusing topics (DITA?)

Add or remove entire chapters as required

Change numbering appearance from book

Generate files from a book on an “as needed” basis for specific purposes

Build generated files, then rename them to Table of Contents.fm or to Index.fm or to List of Figures.fm and so on avoids names being based on book (i.e. Book is Europe.book so

there are EuropeTOC.fm, EuropeIX.fm and so on)

books can not be renamed if defaults are used without renaming generated files

Create “super books” that contain all your files

Let ’s see a sample of some of the

ideas


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Deliver the goods

Organize and create content for your

audiences


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Plan Identify what you need to write in the first place

Once you know what you truly need, you likely write less

The audience will appreciate it

Form a content strategy, perform content analysis, get professional templates, and use the tools to their full potential

Write Create only the parts you identified in the plan (and get sign-offs in

writing)

Consider topic-based (task/concept/reference) to focus the writing

Let the SME contribute, the manager deal with issues, and technical communicators deal with content (all types of content)

Publish Deliver the right information, to the right audience, in the right format,

at the right time, and let them make the right decisions

Want to see something REALLY cool?


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This is a very basic, normal FrameMaker file


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It has minimal format; all “out of the box”


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What have I done so far?


Written text

Assigned paragraph tags

Title, Heading1, Heading2,

Body, Numbered1,

Numbered, Indented

Assigned character tags

Emphasis

Added some graphics

(screen shots, pasted right into

FrameMaker... Yes, I know,

should be referenced)

For the purpose of the

slides I reduced them (to fit

better)

For publish I’m using

fullsize

Added some index

entries, all very basic stuff

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Now let’s see where we can go beyond

“default”


First, I’ll publish it “as is”

File > Publish

Going to create

Responsive HTML5

output only

Review the output

Then I’ll mock up a better

solution to this thing

Create some conditions

Word

Excel

PowerPoint

Apply them, and publish

the defaults

Apply them, and publish

using Dynamic Content

Filter (which, if I may say,

is TOTALLY AWESOME!)

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What we did, and what is next


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Conclusion and contact

Recap of the session


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It's all about the audience.

Discussions abound about the informed consumer,

audience metrics, and personas, but how do you

actually organize and create content geared to

multiple audiences?

Learn tips and techniques for planning, writing, and

publishing which help you deliver the right

information, to the right audience, in the right format,

at the right time, and let them make the right

decisions.

Personalized demo with YOUR content?


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905 833 8448 (Eastern Time)

[email protected]

www.linkedin.com/in/bernardaschwanden

@publishsmarter –or– @aschwanden4stc

www.publishingsmarter.com

make it all about your audience (deliver what they want, how they want, when they want)

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