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Note from the Newsletter Team

Cathy Clarke and Poornima Kirloskar-Saini

It's great to see so many new names among the list of Newsletter contributors. And it would be good  if even more of you could contribute to future issues. So, if you have a favourite tool or website you’d like to recommend, or if you have some tips about solving a communication problem, how about writing a few lines for the Newsletter? Perhaps you’ve worked abroad or work in an interesting environment. We'd love to hear! Just send your contribution to: newsletter@stcuk.org

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Copyright of Newsletter Articles

The STC has a policy on copyright, and the STC office suggests that in each issue of a Chapter Newsletter we should run the following statement:
"This newsletter invites writers to submit articles that they wish to be considered for publication".

Note: By submitting an article, you implicitly grant a license to this newsletter to run the article and for other STC publications to reprint it without permission. Copyright is held by the writer. In your cover letter, please let the editor know if this article has run elsewhere, and if it has been submitted for consideration to other publications.”

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Membership

Mark Clifford, Membership Manager

With the new multiple community options for membership we're still a fairly diverse community geographically. Our current 122 members cover the UK, the Irish Republic, Iceland, Spain , Denmark , Luxembourg , France and the Arab Emirates. I know that for several members - and a variety of reasons - we're an additional choice. Some of you will also have chosen to join Special Interest Groups. The cost of these additional communities is small compared to the potential value you can derive. If you're interested in extending your boundaries, check out www.stc.org/sig_info.asp for more information and a list of the SIGs.

In the UK there are also two Local Interest Groups (LIG), one for the north and, not surprisingly, one for the south. Both meet regularly on an informal basis, as well as planning and driving more formal meetings and local conferences.

As these two have been so successful the management team agreed to approach the Irish members (forgive my banding you all together) with the idea of forming a LIG there. Initial response has been very favourable, even to the offer of a meeting venue. If you're interested in attending the first meeting please let me know. The date is to be confirmed (probably mid-late October) but the initial venue is in Dublin. Hopefully, someone will write a couple of paragraphs about it for the next Newsletter!!

Please welcome new UK Community Members

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My apologies if your name is spelt incorrectly. It's either my fault totally (contributions for spectacles or typing lessons gratefully received) or the information sent from the Office is incorrect. Due to the different phone numbers and postcode formats sometimes the field gets corrupted. If you want to check what information is held please login to www.stc.org and check your profile (www.stc.org/profile.asp).

New Senior Members 

Also, we have three new senior members this month. Congratulations to:

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Anyone for Phoenix?

One of the latest recruits to the UK Chapter isn't a new recruit to technical writing. He isn't a newcomer to the STC either, and he doesn't even live in the UK or Ireland. Tom Barnett is a Past President of the Phoenix Chapter and an Associate Fellow of the STC. He's written articles, run websites, and sat on more local, regional and national STC committees than he can remember. So with all this activity, why has Tom joined our Chapter as well?

The answer is quite simple and very exciting. Tom has taken his inspiration from the idea of having "twin towns" (Tom used the term "sister cities", but "twin towns" is the equivalent term commonly used in the UK). A town in one country chooses to have a special relationship with a town in another country. The towns exchange news, arrange educational and other visits, and get to learn something in depth about each other.

Tom has joined our Chapter so that Phoenix and the UK can become "twin chapters" within the STC. This will involve receiving each other's newsletter, keeping abreast of each other's activities and programmes, and getting to know the other chapter very well. And of course, when our chapter members attend the STC Conference, meeting up with members of their "twin" chapter will be another special experience.

We think this is a tremendous idea, and we are looking forward to learning more about the Phoenix Chapter, its members and its activities. (Most of what I know about Phoenix comes from an old Gene Pitney song!)

So now Tom has become Phoenix 's first "ambassador" to the UK , we'd like to appoint the UK 's first "ambassador" to Phoenix . If you'd be interested in this role, please contact our Chapter President, David Farbey.

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Trans-European Technical Communication Competition 2005

Have you produced some outstanding work this year? Would you like to share it with your fellow technical communicators and maybe even win an award?

Once again, the UK chapter is participating in the Trans-European Technical Communication Competition, and we would like to invite you to participate. Take advantage of this opportunity to be recognized for the excellence of your work. Submitting your entries to the competition is extremely valuable. The judges provide peer reviews and feedback, and winning an award is not only personally satisfying but provides the thrill of being able to tell your manager or client that the piece you produced was recognized by the Society for Technical Communication. Entries are evaluated by peers and all entrants receive a detailed evaluation of their entry. Winners receive an award certificate and acknowledgement of their accomplishments from the technical communications community across Europe .

There are two separate competitions, Technical Publications and Online Communications, each with several categories. You do not need to be a member of the STC to enter the competition. All technical communicators - including students - are eligible to enter. You may submit your own work or submit entries on behalf of your co-workers. (The author must consent to the entry.) The closing date for receiving all competition entries is October 14, 2005 . The results will be announced in mid December.

There are three levels of awards: Distinguished, Excellence, and Merit. There is also a Best of Show award. English-language Distinguished winners automatically qualify to the second-level international competition.

Additional information on competition rules and entry forms will be available to download from the chapter web site in the next couple of days. Alternatively, email Tina Hoffman on thoffman@pathtrace.com if you have any questions regarding the competition. 

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Interested in helping out as a Judge?

In addition, please consider being a judge this year. Being a judge for the competition is a great experience. As a judge, you will view a broad range of your peers’ work and see first-hand the wide variety of media through which we communicate and the many industries that employ our skills and talents. It is not only a learning experience, but also a great opportunity to network with other technical communicators from all over Europe .

You can judge and still submit entries to the competitions; we make sure that you do not judge your own entry.

If you are interested in becoming judge for this year’s competition, please contact Tina Hoffman for further information. Thank you for your support and I look forward to hearing from many of you!

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Forthcoming Events

Southern LIG Meeting in Reading, 27^th October

Please note, this is TWO WEEKS later than advertised in the August newsletter

We are pleased to announce the launch of the Southern LIG (or Local Interest Group) of the STC UK chapter, formerly known as Thames Valley Group. Since so many of you expressed an interest in networking “closer to home”, we are planning a whole series of meetings in various locations in the South East/West. To kick off the season after the summer break, we would like to invite STC UK members (and friends) to join us for an informal gathering on Thursday, 27^th October 2005 .  

We will be meeting in Reading from 18:30ish onwards for a pizza and a drink or two, and the opportunity to meet other technical communicators. Join us for a lively evening of drinks, conversation, and fun. Come out to meet old friends and make some new ones, too.

Where? 

Central Reading (venue to be decided once we know how many people to expect).

When?

Meet from 18:30 onwards on Thursday 27th October 2005 .

Who?

Members of STC UK and their guests. Whether you've attended lots of events before or whether this is your first chance to meet-up, we really want to see you!  Please forward this information to anyone you think might be interested, everybody’s welcome.

Why?

To provide a meeting point for technical communicators in the South of England. Historically, most of our meetings have been held in London, which is not always convenient for everyone. Our aim for the future is to put together a program of events (both formal presentations and informal, social gatherings) that are accessible to more members. To this end, Nick Rosenthal and Nancy Halverson have already launched the Northern LIG . Now it’s the turn of the Southerners!  Join us for the inaugural meeting and help us decide the schedule for the coming year. There will be plenty of opportunity to join the discussions and help us to put on a program of events that really suit your needs and your interests.

Want to come?

Contact Tina Hoffman so we know how many people to expect. Look forward to seeing you there!

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STC UK Covers XML and DITA in Coventry

Saturday, 19th November 2005, Coventry University 

Ever wondered how XML might be useful to YOU? Or maybe you want to find out more about DITA, the exciting successor to DocBook? Our one-day conference in Coventry on 19th November will give you the answers.

You'll want to book your place soon, as we've got a first-rate day planned. Alan Houser, author of the best selling "XML weekend crash course" and a past president of Pittsburgh STC chapter, will give us an in-depth look into the potential of XML and DITA for documentation workflows.

The day will start with coffee at 10:30, and the morning session will give an overview of XML technologies for technical communicators. Lunch will allow plenty of opportunities for that all-important networking, and our afternoon session will feature an in-depth look at DITA.

The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is an XML-based, end-to-end architecture for authoring and delivering technical information. This architecture consists of a set of design principles for creating "information-typed" modules at a topic level. The content then can be delivered in modes such as online help and product support portals on the Web. At the heart of DITA is a topic-oriented XML structure - a document type definition (DTD) called "the topic DTD." Topic becomes the basic unit of the architecture, which allows you to reuse the topic or content, conditionalise the topic, filter content and process content based on its properties. DITA uses existing tags from XML tools, and allows you to continue using XSLT and CSS stylesheet languages or applications.  See Nick Rosenthal’s article in this newsletter.

The day also includes a panel discussion examining the skills required by today’s user support industry. 

What does the newbie need to learn? What resources are available for advancing your skills? What trends are employers tracking? What are students learning in their courses that might help to improve our documents?

And of course, we'll be organising an informal meal at a suitable eatery in Coventry on the Saturday evening.

The date:        Sat Nov 19

The venue:     Coventry University

The cost:        STC members £35

                        Non-members £60

                        Full-time students: £20 (limited to seven student places; first come, first served!)

How to book:   Send an e-mail to events@stcuk.org

We're also putting together a one-day workshop for Sunday the 20^th, also in Coventry (venue & pricing to be confirmed). We'll post full details on the STC web site in the very near future. We’re trying to keep the costs of this training day low, and of course, if you book for both Saturday and Sunday you’ll get a discount! If you’re interested in staying over in Coventry , a number of us are staying at the Ibis Hotel. There’s also the Britannia Hotel in the city centre. A little further out there’s the Coventry Hill Hotel and the Royal Court Hotel, as well as the Holiday Inn Express just off the A45.  

This STC UK conference is being hosted by the Multimedia and Communication Design Course at Coventry University School of Art and Design. It will be held in the Bugatti Building - a state-of-the art design centre supporting design research in the university, nestling in the heart of Coventry city centre.

Coventry University's  MMCD course is the direct descendent of the first Technical Communication course in England . The course retains close links with industry and is designed to foster an understanding of the user as the centre of all communication design.

Book your place right away by mailing events@stcuk.org  

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STC UK Dinner - Wed, 7^th December

This year we are holding our annual Christmas Dinner on Wed 7th December at Brown’s Restaurant, St. Martin ’s Lane, London . All members and their partners are welcome to attend, so please make a note in your diary. Dinner starts at 7.45pm.

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Other Meetings

 DITA Europe^TM Conference - Four Letters you have to know

Presented by the Center for Information-Development Management (CIDM) and Trisoft Thursday 3^rd November NH Rhein-Main Hotel, in the vicinity of the Frankfurt Airport.

Why should you care about moving to DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture)?

Dave Schell, Senior Manager at IBM and key sponsor of the DITA initiative, delivers the opening address at the DITA Europe conference. He asks us to consider several important questions:  

"In a world of very tight and dwindling resources, why would anyone want to make the effort to move to a new data format for their technical documentation?""What advantages can a corporation, a small technical development team, or even one person working alone as a technical communicator gain from going to DITA? As a point of comparison, what advantages has IBM achieved with DITA?"  

DITA, using a topic-based architecture at its core, promises to change the global face of information development. As a new international standard, supported by OASIS DITA Technical Committee, DITA is rapidly gaining worldwide acceptance among communication professionals.  

Join Dr. JoAnn Hackos, CIDM, and Trisoft at our first DITA EuropeTM conference.  

Who should attend?

This conference is designed for those who are interested in implementing XML DITA or learning more about this new standard for topic-based authoring.

 Speakers include

•  Dave Schell, IBM, Why Should You Care About DITA? Answering User Needs with Mass Customization

• Indi Liepa, Nokia Technology Platforms, Implementing a Common XML Architecture with DITA

• Chris Kravogel, SeicoDyne GmbH, Specializing DITA for your Information Needs

• Sissi Closs, COMET Computer GmbH, Successful DITA Implementation with FrameMaker

• Ronald Walraven, SDL International, DITA to Support your Global Information Management Requirements

• JoAnn Hackos, CIDM and Comtech Services, Inc., Implementing DITA in your Organization

• Miel de Schepper, Trisoft, Components of a Professional DITA/CMS Implementation

• Helen O'Shea, IBM Deutschland Entwicklung GmbH, Implementing DITA in Writing Organizations at IBM

 And don't miss the live project demonstration "Using DITA from Authoring through Publishing," given by Comtech Services, Inc. and Trisoft.

To register online and for more information please visit the conference web site at http://www.infomanagementcenter.com/DITAeurope/index.htm.

Contact Koen Lourdon at koenl@trisoft.be or [32] (0)3 238 7650 with questions.

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Recent Events

STC UK Leaders Weekend

Have you ever taken on a new project, knowing that some challenges lay ahead, but full of vague hope for what you might be able to do? And then reality hits – what do I actually have to do to start?

This is where strategic planning comes in. The leaders of STC-UK gathered on the side of the M1 in early September to begin putting together a strategic plan for the next year. So, what did we do?

It wasn’t a weekend of leisure I can tell you that. We met at the roadside Travelodge near Nottingham East Midlands Airport . It was literally a petrol station with a hotel – so no luxury spa. Saturday morning to Sunday evening in a conference room, while outside it was sunny and warm. Did I mention it was a weekend?

We had a special guest to help us puzzle through (well, maybe not so much a special guest as a task-master), erm, I mean ‘facilitator’. Vici Koster-Lenhardt, our Director-Sponsor, came all the way from Vienna to guide us through a process that she’s found very helpful for other chapters. Okay, she wasn’t a tough task-master, and she did bring lovely chocolates.

So we began with our goals – trying to identify ourselves as a chapter; building our team; improve communications etc. We also knew that we’d be developing a budget for the year and outline a basic program.

All of this sounds easy enough – but we had so many discussions to get through. What makes a mature chapter? How do we give value for members? What can we do to improve our profession? What kinds of events will bring our members together?

We kept talking, working through pieces of the puzzle. Putting together a strategy for the year. And, we kept falling behind in our agenda. And behind. Vici kept adjusting our timetable. Our Sunday morning was getting earlier and earlier.

Luckily, we managed some laughter along the way, and since we were all communicators who were interested in our professional group, our enthusiasm didn’t wane too much.

And then the big one – re-chartering our chapter. Why were we here? Okay, maybe not the big philosophical question about our human existence – just a re-definition of our chapter’s purpose. Yes, we need a new mission statement, concepts to guide us as we relate to our members, other professional groups, and the STC mothership. It may seem like it doesn’t matter, but in fact, if we can outline chapter’s guiding principles, not only will we catch up with the rest of the STC chapters (who are also doing the re-chartering cha-cha), but we’re giving ourselves a chance to build a very healthy chapter.

Although the discussions got a little slow for a while, and it was a difficult exercise, I think it was worth it. And no, we didn’t get through everything. It’s tough to admit, but we still have work to do.

Another strategic leadership weekend isn’t planned until next year. Part of our planning exercise (which Vici had to be very strict about), was committing each and every point in our strategic plan to a deadline and an owner. So, whatever we didn’t get through, we’ve agreed to discuss and make decisions by a certain date.

The most important decision was to have a monthly conference call to keep everything moving forward. And we are keeping things moving forward. I hope you enjoy your STC year.  

Oh, and the next strategic meeting will be sometime next June, right after the Annual General Meeting. Or maybe the following weekend… anyone care to come along?

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STC UK Meeting at Cambridge - Sept 2005

Jean Prince

Thinking about using XML? Already using it but want to learn more? Justin Darley’s presentation at a recent STC meeting provided a real-life case study about using XML to create online help. His customer is a legal publishing house already using XML. His remit: create a way to build online help for the company’s due diligence software product.  

In his presentation, held at ARM Corporation in Cambridge in September, Justin, who works at  Cherryleaf, provided an overview of DocBook (www.docbook.org), a system for writing structured documents in XML (or SGML). Then he walked us through his three-step process:  

1. Create the DocBook content: To write the DocBook content, Justin says he currently uses XMLmind XML Editor (www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor), a version of which can be downloaded free from the internet.

2. Transform the content into HTML Help source files: Justin uses XSLT style sheets that are available for download from the DocBook web site (http://docbook.sourceforge.net/projects/xsl/). XSLT is a language for transforming XML documents into other documents. He cautioned that he had to customise the style sheet somewhat, a challenge that he enjoys anyway, but described how he could use a customisation layer to customise the style sheet without changing its code directly.

3. Compile into HTML Help: Before compiling, Justin uses HTML Tidy (http://tidy.sourceforge.net), a free utility that does things like indenting HTML to make it easier to read. It was an informative meeting and a good way to learn from someone who had already worked through the issues of this real-life challenge. 

It was an informative meeting and a good way to learn from someone who had already worked through the issues of this real-life challenge.

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Usability Professionals Association Meeting, September 14^th, Manchester

Robert Werner

The North of England group of the Usability Professionals Association hosted an event at Cafe Muse located at the Manchester Museum last Wednesday. The event was attended by 20 professionals, among them Usability testers, technical authors and product designers.

The evening was organized David Hawdale and Simon Crosbie of Hawdale Associates, and began with their presentation of a Techsmith product called Morae, which is described as a "usability lab in a box". Morae provides usability and customer experience lab testing by recording and displaying in real-time on a separate machine, the screen activity and reactions of the user to a product interface or website.  Data can be reviewed for analysis using the Morae Manager interface, which provides a timeline for easy selection of any point in the recorded session for playback. The product was considered by some of the experienced usability testers among us to be a great tool for improving the usability testing experience and reasonably priced. A further demonstration was proposed for a future event to present the product in more detail.

We enjoyed a short break for a chat and a drink in the lab-like surroundings of the Cafe Muse in keeping with the theme of the first presentation. With its stark white decor and cold marble slab tables and bar counter, Café Muse lacked only a few Bunsen burners, some glass bottom culture dishes and a microscope to complete the scene.

The main event of the evening was a talk from Stuart Smith from Manchester Information & Associated Services (MIMAS), which is part of the University of Manchester. Stuart has published papers on Dyslexia and Virtual Learning Environments and Accessibility, Social Sciences and the Development of Content Management Systems and is involved in providing guidance on accessibility within MIMAS. Stuart talked about Accessibility and details of the issues to address in product interface design to accommodate the many different types of physical and cognitive disabilities that users experience. The talk was very informative and thought provoking.

Afterwards, about 15 of us moved up the road and settled in for the remainder of the evening for lively conversation and samples of the fine ales and wares of the Kro bar hostelry.

Useful links:

Usability Professionals Association: http://www.ukupa.org.uk

Hawdale Associates: http://www.hawdale-associates.com

Manchester Information & Associated Services (MIMAS): http://www.mimas.ac.uk

Techsmith Morae Usability and Website Testing: http://www.techsmith.com/products/morae/default.asp

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Developer's Group invites TechScribe

Dr Mike Unwalla

Mike Unwalla recently (Sept) explained how to write user documentation at a national meeting of software developers.  

"Software developers are interested in making software documentation less of an onerous task for themselves. We invited TechScribe to help take some of the horror out of software documentation for developers. Mike Unwalla made us look clearly at what documentation is needed, why, and how best to approach it. Best of all, he advised that less is more!" explains Joanna Pooley, Director of The Developers Group (www.richplum.co.uk).  

Brian Long (www.blong.com), organiser of the event, says, "Mike made a welcome contribution to the Developers Group meeting; the talk was clearly well received given the amount of positive feedback and interaction that occurred."  

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"The Developers Group is a national association that provides members with essential information and training about all aspects of software development," says Mike. "I was really excited when Joanna invited me to present to the group in London . That shows how highly TechScribe is regarded in the profession."

The Developers Group is an association of professional software developers. The group provides members with essential information and training. See www.richplum.co.uk.  

TechScribe helps software companies to provide clear user documentation for their products. Dr Mike Unwalla has been a technical writer in the software industry since 1994. Prior to his doctoral research, he taught English for five years. He has a rare combination of technical ability, teaching expertise and English language skills. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators. A photograph of Mike Unwalla is available here. 

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Planning to Accommodate Risk in your Technical Documentation Project

by Andrew J Marlow BA (Open), BSc, PGDTech (Open), MSc, DBA, MISTC

Article extracted from the book Project Management for Technical Documentation, 2005 (ISBN 1-873407-07-6).

Copyright © 2005 Andrew J Marlow. All Rights Reserved. Reproduced for STC UK Newsletter by permission of the publisher.

Risk is an inherent part of all projects, but the degree of it varies. Risk does not necessarily imply danger, but it does imply uncertainty. Whatever the project, there is a chance that something will go wrong, but it is rare for projects to fail purely as a result of genuinely unforeseen circumstances. More often than not, failures are due to a lack of judgment, inadequate planning or provision for change.

Problems can result in delays, compromises, wastage, liabilities and failures—almost all of which result in some degree of financial loss. The consequences may be small or large. At one end of the scale, difficulties with the project can result in minor inconvenience, with little impact on cost, schedule or quality. At the other end of the scale, major project deficiencies can compromise health and safety, result in legal claims, ruin reputations and customer confidence and bring down whole organizations.

Major decisions that can affect a technical documentation project, from significant change in specification to complete abandonment, may be outside the control of the technical communicator, but change should always be allowed for.

Here are some typical risks that can affect documentation projects. Although not all are necessarily within the control of the technical communicator, their potential impact on a project should be considered during the planning stages:

Lack of Planning Time

Unfortunately, there are often commercial and managerial pressures on technical communicators to deliver documentation and little else. Time spent in planning, research or investigative work is sometimes considered unproductive. Consequently, the technical communicator may be given little opportunity, if any, to undertake project planning in sufficient depth, which puts the project’s success at substantial risk.

Inadequate Funding

Projects often include cost estimates based on the planned resource requirements and schedules. If there is insufficient finance available to meet those requirements, plus any contingencies, there will have to be compromises, shortcuts or cutbacks; all of which have the potential to jeopardize the project.

Shifting Specifications          

When producing technical documentation for new or redeveloped products, requirements and design specifications are important source documents for project planning. Assuming such specifications exist at all, it is not uncommon for technical specifications to change, sometimes radically, throughout the development life cycle.

In some cases, these specifications are not maintained beyond their first draft, so product design amendments are carried out ‘on the fly’. This is particularly true of software development projects.

Specifications on which technical documentation projects are based might be inadequate or loosely defined. This means the work effort could increase beyond what is planned.

Poor Change Control

Changes from initial specifications need to be managed effectively and any deviation from requirements should be assessed. Each may carry their own risks and the affect on resources and schedules should be considered carefully. Poor change control systems can result in changes being overlooked, misinterpreted or left until late in the schedule.

Insufficient Contingency

Technical communicators must be vigilant and ensure their documentation projects allow contingency for change. All changes can have a cumulative effect and even a series of minor deviations from the plan can put a project at risk.

Small changes are often overlooked in the planning stages and there is a tendency to focus on product-specific risks. While major changes in product development have a direct affect on projects, so too can indirect changes, such as the sudden absence of a technical author due to illness. The larger and longer the project, the greater the contingency required. Insufficient contingency may force difficult decisions and compromises that could have been avoided.

Poor Communication

Failure to communicate changes to other parties involved in a project will have knock-on consequences. Technical communicators might be forgiven for thinking the onus is on engineers, designers, developers, reviewers and others to keep them informed of changes affecting their documentation project, but the lines of communication must work both ways.

For example, a software developer relying on a technical author to supply an integrated, context-sensitive help system needs to know about changes to the technical documentation project that could affect his or her own schedule or workload.  

Dealing with project risks is a two-stage process. In the first stage, potential risks must be identified and analysed. In the second stage, those risks must be monitored and managed during the project’s life cycle.

Risk Assessment

Looking for potential risks might seem straightforward, but the key to successful risk assessment involves finding the right balance between probability and effect.

For example, underestimating the workload is a risk that might have a high probability of occurrence, especially in a documentation project associated with new product development. The consequential delay could have an adverse impact on a product launch, resulting in unmet marketing claims. Such a risk would be worthy of identification and monitoring.

By contrast, the risk that a document might need one more draft than expected as a result of the review process might also have a high probability of occurrence, but the consequences for the project may be so minor that no specific action plan or contingency is warranted.

Risk assessment can be done by drawing up a list of potential issues, deciding on the probability of their occurrence, estimating the impact they will have if they occur, and then planning a contingency action, if possible.

Only when you have assessed the degree of risk, can the contingency action you plan be put into context. Planning for contingency involves seeking ways of reducing the impact on the project as well as reducing the likelihood of the problem occurring. Any contingency action should be a workable option. For example, to reduce the impact of some technical authors being unavailable (perhaps due to illness), you could employ more authors than you need at the outset, but this is unlikely to be financially viable. Instead, having the option to call on additional resources at fairly short notice, or subcontracting if the need arises, might be a more workable solution.

Another way of reducing risk is to consider ways of transferring it. For example, a technical documentation project for a specialized and complex new product might carry a risk of overrunning because authors struggle to learn new technologies in the time available. Such risk can be transferred by subcontracting the work to technical communicators with the necessary prerequisite knowledge, thus reducing the probability of the issue arising in the first place.

Eliminating risks altogether is often impractical if not impossible, but not all threats to the project will have a viable contingency action. Sometimes, it is necessary to accept that a risk exists, to be aware of its impact, but realize that, at least at the planning stage, no obvious solution is available.

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Why DITA does it for me

Nick Rosenthal

At the STC conference in Seattle last May, I sat in awe as IBM's Erik Hennum* showed how some freely available shareware can help a competent technical communicator put together a manual with conditional text, create a PDF version, output a slightly different variant to HTML for web use, and quickly change formatting and appearance. As his session description put it:

"The DITA toolkit generates help, websites, and PDF books. By installing standard Open Source tools, you can get up and running in a morning. Through DITA extensibility, you can modify or add processing. This presentation shows you how."

And it certainly did show me how. Using a manual for a fictional software product, he used a form of conditional text to handle software variants suitable for running on the Windows, Mac or Unix platforms. Then he created a neatly formatted PDF manual containing just the material relevant to the Windows platform, before outputting help system for the Unix version. Impressive stuff.  DITA is clearly a very powerful tool. And when you bear in mind that there are even options for combining FrameMaker with DITA (the new FrameMaker version 7.2 comes with a starter application for DITA, for example), then this is a technology that all tech comms experts need to be aware of. So come along to Coventry on November 19th!  

Or if you can't wait, you can download the DITA open toolkit from here.

* Erik Hennum works on the design and implementation of User Assistance for the IBM Storage Systems Group. For DITA, he has helped shape the principles of domain specialization. He participates in the OASIS DITA Technical Committee as an active observer

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How to remove moiré from screenshots

This article is reproduced from the Techscribe website by kind permission of Mike Unwalla.  http://www.techscribe.co.uk/ta/remove-moire.htm) © TechScribe, Sheffield , South Yorkshire .

Moiré is an unwanted pattern that appears in screen shots, as shown in this example (a scanned image from a printed page):

On the Windows platform, the problem typically arises with images of scroll bars. It makes documentation look unprofessional, but what can you do? One guaranteed solution is to remove the source of the problem.

Moiré is an interference pattern which is caused when two regular patterns overlap. In our case, one of the patterns is the reproduction of the dots on the printed page and the other pattern is contained in the scroll bar. This is not obvious when you view the scroll bar on the screen, or when you print an image. However, if you re-size an image, the pattern becomes obvious. The image below is five times the actual size of a scroll bar, and you can clearly see light (white) and dark pixels:

To solve the problem, replace the pattern of dots with a block of solid colour:

What colour values should you use for the solid block of colour? A quick fix is to choose a shade of grey that looks correct. Alternatively, you could calculate values. One method that works (we don't make any claims about its purity from a theoretical perspective) is to use the average values of the colour data. Your graphics application probably has this feature. If it does not, you can calculate the colour manually.

The RGB values for white are 255, 255, 255. Our grey pixels have the following RGB values: 212, 208, 200. For each colour channel, we want the average between the grey and the white, as shown in the last column of the table below. In the table, Vg represents the value for the grey pixels.

We used the values from the last column in the final screen shot above.

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Thumbnails, DHTML and WebHelp

Cathy Clarke

I always like to include screenshots when writing procedures in help for Web applications. The problem is that web pages tend to be large and take up too much space on the help page.  

To overcome this limitation, why not make both a thumbnail and a full-size (or slightly reduced) image for each web page, then use the DHTML feature of WebHelp is used to show and hide the full-size image? Initially, only the thumbnails appear on the help page, but when you ‘CLICK TO ENLARGE’ you see the full-size image. Click again to hide the image. 

Visio is a good tool for making thumbnails. It has excellent resizing capabilities and produces good quality Gif files. You can create the ‘CLICK TO ENLARGE’ label as a separate, reusable object. To save as a GIF, select just the shrunken image and text label (suitably aligned), then choose GIF as the format in the SAVE AS dialog box. Only selected objects are included in the GIF file. 

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Digital Camera Card needed Reformatting

Cathy Clarke

I use a digital camera constantly in my job. The current camera is only about 18 months old, so I was somewhat put out when it suddenly stopped working. It would turn on OK, but as soon as I started to take a picture, I found the button wouldn’t press in.  

We discussed buying a new camera. However, I thought I’d ‘just check’ with the local camera shop first. The shop assistant immediately suspected the storage card and put a new one into the camera. To my great relief the camera worked perfectly. Next, he kindly reformatted my original card. Yes, digital camera menus have a format option! This was a total success.

I bought another card ‘as a backup’ and chuckled all the way home about modern cameras being fitted with something that behaves just like a floppy disk! And at work my boss was rather pleased at not having to replace the camera.

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