Why Technical Writing Matters

Posted on November 17, 2011 by Lori Deana Luza

Real Life

Today, I was faced with a real-life example of why Technical Writing matters.

Our dental insurance cards are printed in a ALL-CAPS, sans-serif font. That matters because:

Capital Letter I looks exactly like Numerical 1

Numerical 0 looks very much like Capital Letter O

When asked to share your member number, one has to study the rest of the member card to clarify 1s from Is and Os from 0s.

A Tech Writer would catch this as a problem during the card’s design and would insist on a distinctive font that uses serifs for the I and 1 as well as wide capital Os and “computer” 0s.[1] Anyone with an eye for fonts would save the insurance companies’ customer service lines a lot of wasted time in deciphering their non-specific characters with customers on the phone.

Bonus

Consider, too, not every font renders these characters with distinction:

8, B –or even– S, 5

Fonts matter.

Use your Technical Writers and staff designers. You will find a balance between a font that fits on the card, one that is legible to customers, and one that is attractive, too.

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[1] If you are using Internet Explorer, you may not see the symbol for zero. IE does not play nice with the Internet and simply can’t do what other browsers can. Consider Firefox or Opera, instead.
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Word – Turn Off Hyperlinks

Posted on November 8, 2011 by Lori Deana Luza

Word tries to help you by automatically formatting hyperlinks and email addresses with clickable links in blue underlined text. For documents that will be used electronically, this can be handy. For documents going to print, this can create clutter.

Turn Off an Individual Hyperlink

  • Right-click the link
  • Choose Hyperlink from the popup menu
  • Choose Edit Hyperlink from the secondary popup menu
  • Click the Remove Link button
  • Repeat for every link you want removed from the document

Turn Off AutoFormatting for Hyperlinks

To turn off automatic hyperlinks for future text/copy, you’ll need to remove that option from your preferences.

  • From your menu bar, choose
    Word > Preferences (MacOS) or
    Tools > Options (Windows)
  • Within Authoring and Proofing Tools, select AutoCorrect
  • Select AutoFormat As You Type
  • In the “Replace as you type” section, uncheck “Internet and network paths with hyperlinks”
  • Click OK
Word Turn Off Hyperlinks

Prefer a visual? Click for a quick how-to.

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Presentation for Austin WordPress Hands On

Posted on October 11, 2011 by Lori Deana Luza

WordPress Websites: Show and Tell

What theme are you using, and why? Is it a custom theme or off the shelf”?

AustinChildfree.org | @AustinNoKidding
- Twenty Eleven 1.2

AustinCanes.com | @AustinCanes
- Weaver 2.2.4

  • Rely on the KISS principle / easy Administration
  • Easy to delegate to the future webmaster
  • Allow “anyone” to easily change the background, header, colors, etc.
  • Widget-friendly, allowing “anyone” to rearrange elements on the site

What plugins are you using, and why?

  • AdRotate by Arnan de Gans – used for sponsorship (AustinChildfree.org)
  • Events Manager – used for RSVPs (AustinCanes.com & AustinChildfree.org

General Faves

  • Twitter Tools by Crowd Favorite
    – Tweets the instant a blog post is published.• All In One SEO Pack by Michael Torbert – sets titles, descriptions, and keywords for search engines; blog titles can be clever or simple (instead of keyword rich)
  • Mobile Theme Switcher by Jeremy Arntz
    – sets which theme is displayed on types of mobile devices—particularly the iPad
  • Tumblr Widget by Gabriel Roth and WP Tumblr by the Greek WordPress Community
    – embed & incorporate your Tumblr feed into WordPress (instead of sending WordPress posts to Tumblr); great for “reblogs” & other Tumblr-specific sharing.

What’s one thing you might do differently if you were to build the site from scratch?

AustinChildfree.org

  • Eliminate the in-house “program” from scratch. Since it “broke” during neglected server upgrades over recent years, we should have put it out of its misery.
  • Looked for money for a graphic designer or an “intern”. The message is difficult to convey in the positive.

What’s a cool thing you want to show off?

  • “free for commercial use stock images” on flickr flickr > Search > Advanced Search or: flickr.com/search/advanced Type in terms at the top, choose other preferences, and click the 2nd/3rd CC boxes at the bottom. [Hat Tip to @SheilaS for this nugget!] EX: keywords “Bollywood Clay Pit” with all three checked results in one image of the band; “Bollywood Clay Pit” with only the first two checked results in all nine images uploaded to flickr from the event.
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Presenting at Austin WordPress Hands On

Posted on October 11, 2011 by Lori Deana Luza

WordPress Websites: Show and Tell

I’m flattered to have been asked to present at tonight’s WordPress Websites: Show and Tell.

While the group is currently full, there is a waiting list. So, if you want to see what a handful of us think are neat tricks and tips, sign up.

(And don’t worry if you don’t make this one. This is a popular program that comes around every so often. )

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WWWT: 35 Years Experience for a 3-month Contract?

Posted on October 7, 2011 by Lori Deana Luza

It’s been a while since I’ve found a “Who Would Work There” worthy job posting. Clearly, they need a technical writer or two. I hope they let HR borrow one from time to time!

WWWT: 35 Years Experience for a 3-month Contract?

Surely, this is supposed to be 3-to-5 years experience….?

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Excel Tip: Zoom to Fit

Posted on September 28, 2011 by Lori Deana Luza

Are your eyes tired from all the lines of numbers? Are you scrolling too much? Excel can zoom to fit your window.

  • Highlight the section you are reviewing.
  • Get the pulldown for the zoom, and choose Selection.
  • Ta Da! A perfect fit!
ExcelZoomToSelection

Prefer a visual? Click for a one-minute how-to.

What if the area is so big that you can’t scroll with the mouse without losing control? Then, use the keyboard to select.

  • Click in the last cell in the bottom right corner that you want in your selection. I even go one column and one row past my last cell to give little right-hand and bottom margins to the work.
  • Cmd-Shift Up Arrow and Cmd-Shift Left Arrow. (Ctrl-Shift, if using a PC.)
    Repeat, if necessary. Depending on your data layout, one Up or Left may not be enough to get to Row 1 or Column A. If you have a lot of blank rows/columns in your layout, you could just hold the Cmd-Shift Up/Left Arrow until Row 1/Column A is highlighted.
  • Everything from your last cell to Cell A1 is now selected.
  • Without clicking in the worksheet (which would de-select your selection), click the pulldown for the zoom, and choose Selection.

Bookmark this tip, you’re going to wonder where you read it when you get ready for income taxes!

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Video Blogging: a best practice

Posted on September 22, 2011 by Lori Deana Luza

As a reader, I don’t usually care for video blog posts. The Internet is huge, so I tend to skim the surface of any blog post to see if I really want to read it. This is something you can’t do with most video blogs. And that is because most bloggers don’t add video correctly.

A post that is nothing but the video is useless to me. I am not going to blindly start a video and devote both my auditory and visual attention to it unless I know it’s a good use of my two minutes (often touted as a best-practice length for online videos) or more.

News outlets were among the first to figure out the solution. A transcript along with the video gives us the chance to skim. A transcript allows for good keyword-rich content that will be good for SEO. Furthermore, it allows readers to find the content when searching.

For my particular reading/learning style, I found the example here to be even better.

video blog by Brian Wong with annotated highlights

He does make one mistake, in my opinion: there is a popup asking readers to share an email address. I find them annoying even when all I have to do is close the box. Trust me, if the writing is good and the topics are compelling, I’ll click a link below the story or in the sidebar to sign up for the newsletter or RSS feed.

One more suggestion for anyone getting into video blogging or screen casting. Do your best to keep the focal point in the top 3/4 of the screen. When we watch videos online, the popup ads along the bottom are easy to ignore unless they are covering what we need to see. (…and I never pay attention to these advertised products and services. I only hit the close X.)

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Good Passwords, simplified

Posted on September 2, 2011 by Lori Deana Luza

In my previous posts on passwords, I got very technical and “in the weeds”. This is a simplified version of the same concepts.

  1. Avoid any common words, even names.
  2. Use a combination of lowercase, UPPERCASE, num63rs, and $ymbol$.
  3. A line from a song is a great way to create a unique password
    You might use Katy’s Perry’s song “Last Friday Night” from the album Teenage Dream:
    “Pictures of last night ended up online
    I’m screwed
    Oh Well”
  4. ….which makes this “acronym”
    polneuoisow
  5. …and when you trade out a few numbers/symbols/UPPERCASE, you get
    p%l^euO!Sow

It’s complex, can fool most algorithm “hackers”, and is easy to remember if it’s a song/pattern of your choosing.

…now you’ll be singing along to your login, which is pretty fun to do!

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Blocking Flash

Posted on August 10, 2011 by Lori Deana Luza

Flash can be pretty, even elegant. Usually, however, it seems that business owners don’t know when to quit…and ask their designers and developers for more More MORE…creeping toward obnoxious.

For faster load time and to save me from auto-play sounds (when I’m already listening to music), I have Flash blocked in Firefox.

So, when I stumbled on my dealership’s site today in search of their service department’s phone number, I saw this:

Flash is blocked.

Somehow, I doubt this is what anyone really wants customers to see.

The mobile site, while pretty, is barely useful. “Schedule Service” doesn’t let customers schedule anything. It only lists the phone number and email address of the service departments in this area.

 

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Skinny Supposedly Sells

Posted on August 4, 2011 by Lori Deana Luza

We’ve all seen websites and emails with huge “white space” on the edges…forcing you to scroll like mad just to read a few short paragraphs.

Skinny Supposedly Sells

If you’ve ever wondered why sites are designed this way, it’s because someone did some study that “proves” these perform better. According to what I was taught, they even went so far as to determine exactly where images and a call to action should be placed for better conversion. Whether it’s selling a product or getting people to join an email list for a product or service, the study showed a greater rate of return.

I don’t believe the results, exactly.

In my opinion, this style talks down to its audience. It resembles the style of children’s books and early readers. I find it annoying to have to scroll just to read a short message. Finally, the only time I heard this style defended, it was by an incompetent web designer and marketer.

So, I suspect the study measured products and services that target an undereducated segment of our population. The immature style is successful with an immature audience. If a product or service wants me to pay attention, then they need to treat me like a well-educated potential client.

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