Posts Tagged ‘Technology’
Does your company use Interactive Electronic Technical Manuals (IETM)? These documents offer users a multimedia and multi-platform experience.
Around 1980, some companies and organizations, notably the aerospace industry and the branches of the U.S. military, began to re-think how they presented technical information. Their products were complex, and their maintenance, troubleshooting and product-support requirements were stringent and time-consuming.
They knew they needed to improve performance, reduce errors, and shorten learning timelines. But how?
As it happened, they looked at emerging computer technologies and wondered if moving from paper to an electronic format would improve results. Among their questions:
- Would users find it easier to learn and use the material?
- Would they reduce errors and improve performance?
- Could they integrate documentation with other systems?
- Could they save money?
Tests with interactive electronic formats showed positive results and so, encouraged, the companies and the military forged ahead into the world of Interactive Electronic Technical Manuals (IETM).
Since that time, we have seen IETM systems develop a variety of features, with most using one or more of the following:
Linear Structure. This sort of electronic document is based on the structure and layout of a printed book and uses navigational aids, such as a table of contents and a list of figures, that hyperlink into the content. A PDF file is a good example.
Nonlinear Structure. These online documents are organized around the logic of the product or task, for example, instead of following a linear book-type structure. However, the concept of a static page remains. As you would expect, there are lots of hyperlinks and other navigational aids. This type of document is often authored in a markup language.
Dynamic Data. These online documents are very nonlinear in structure. Content and pages are dynamic, drawing much of their data from relational databases and data dictionaries. Background programming automatically updates the dynamic data when the databases and dictionaries are updated. Hyperlinking in these documents is typically very complex and is, therefore, usually handled by programming. Content may also be context-specific and user-specific.
Integrated with Expert Systems. As companies build databases of heuristics and expert feedback, these can be integrated with the IETM system to improve the user experience and results. This information can be dynamically mapped into documents in all sorts of ways. For example, feedback by expert troubleshooters about errors and how to resolve them is sought after by companies across the product and process spectrum.
New Frontier—Multiple Devices. Many companies are now changing the way they and their customers think about IETM. From design concept to reality, they are experimenting with unleashing product support through all sorts of channels, for example: Mobile devices such as tablets and phones, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, websites, CDs, PDF, print, wikis, and blogs.
The new frontier of IETM seems to call for a “basket” of delivery platforms, each carefully selected for a certain type of content.
And no matter the platform, content rules. As ever.
Content must be organized in a way that suits the product, the audience, and its intended use. Content must be consistent across multiple platforms, well structured, properly modularized, cross-referenced and completely accessible by a full range of search and navigational features.
IETMs and their spin-offs present design, writing and production challenges, but produce a better user experience and greater performance improvements over stand-alone paper documents.
For more on creating an interactive user experience, see my recent post Let Your Customers Tweet in Your Documents.
Now it’s your turn: Does your company use IETMs? On which delivery platforms? How would you describe your experience implementing IETMs? Do you think the results are worth it? Please share your thoughts and questions about IETMs in comments. Elizabeth Lexleigh LexPower The Write Ideas
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3-D Laser Scanning: A New Documentation Tool?
Could 3-D laser scanners become the next breakthrough tool in business and technical communication?
According to Wikipedia, a 3-D laser scanner is a “device that analyzes a real-world object or environment to collect data on its shape” as well as its surface textures and colors. This produces a high-definition map, a sort of “point cloud” of collected data, which can “then be used to construct digital, three dimensional models useful for a wide variety of applications.”
One such application currently underway is to “back up history,” a process by which preservationists use portable 3-D laser scanners to make digital records of at-risk landmarks around the world. The non-profit group CyArk calls these high-resolution scans “reality capture.”
The U.S. National Center for Preservation Technology and Training also intends to launch projects in the preservation field in order to “use the 3-D images to show changes in the structure and color” of objects.
And Popsci reports on “the coolest backpack ever: a wearable collection of cameras and lasers that maps the interiors of buildings as it goes, instantly generating photo-real 3-D maps of structures.”
In addition to documenting cultural artifacts and building interiors, such scanners can be used in industrial design, prosthetics design, prototyping, engineering and quality control, among many other potential applications.
Does your company use 3-D laser scanners to document products? Do you think this technology is feasible and realistic for most companies?
Would you, as a business or technical communicator, like to use this technology in your work?
Please leave comments to share your ideas on using 3-D laser scanning as part of product and process documentation. Elizabeth Lexleigh LexPower The Write Ideas
How often do we need teaching and training materials of some type?
I’m sure you’ll recognize these common formats, which can be presented in a variety of media: teaching aids, guides, manuals, tutorials, procedures, documentation, directions, textbooks, applied exercises, and workbooks.
If you are a business writer or a technical writer, then you already know that writing training materials is one of the most frequent projects in the workplace. You also know that this type of writing has lasting consequences for your audience and affects your company’s success in the marketplace. How best to meet the needs of your audience? Which techniques really work to help achieve your company’s training objectives?
If you are a teacher or a trainer, whether in a school or a corporate classroom, you’re aware of the constant need to find innovative, effective methods of teaching your subject. It’s a never-ending hunt for new ideas and approaches, isn’t it?
If you are a lifelong learner, you know the impact that really good teaching materials can have on how well you learn, and whether you can apply your new knowledge. But it’s easy to forget the details as the years wear on, and maybe there are some aspects of a subject you just never really got around to learning, but would like to. Wouldn’t it be great to have another resource that supplied that information for you whenever you wanted it?
As Fortune Would Have It, Here Is Something You May Find Worthwhile
Today I read an article in Fortune magazine about one of Bill Gates’ favorite online educational websites, the Khan Academy, a non-profit organization that is the brainchild of one man, Salman Kahn.
Khan, who created the 1,600-plus titles in the video library, states on the site that his library has become the “most-used educational video resource as measured by YouTube video views per day and unique users per month.” In addition to creating more videos, he is also busy enhancing his ever-growing library with user-paced exercises.
Oh, and did I mention that it’s all free? The goal of “the Khan Academy [is] to become the free classroom for the World.”
The website offers short videos (about 15 minutes each), which provide mini-lectures about a slew of subjects, ranging from mathematics to the sciences to history to finance/banking to current economics, and more.
The tutorials are conversational and low-key. Viewers see an electronic blackboard on which Kahn doodles and diagrams and draws as he speaks, communicating his concepts in a way that is easy to understand. The short segments convey the substance of each topic in a memorable way.
Learning Is Fundamental to Our Success
Writer, trainer or learner, we can all agree that teaching and learning are fundamental to our success as individuals, as companies and as a country.
And we can all benefit from exploring different ways of teaching and learning. No one has cornered the market on methodology, and new technologies can expand our horizons. We should be open to new possibilities and curious about discovering fresh ways of communicating ideas and knowledge.
Khan’s playlist of tutorials now gets an average of 70,000 hits a day, according to the Fortune article. Clearly, he’s offering something that many people the world over find very useful. What about you?
What do you think of Khan’s teaching library? If you are a writer, does it give you any new ideas to apply in creating training materials? If you are a teacher or trainer, do you find his approach usable in your own work?
Please leave comments to share your thoughts and insights with the rest of us. Elizabeth Lexleigh LexPower The Write Ideas
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