Microsoft Help Version 3 Preview • Paul O'Rear and Joe Welinske
In this session, Joe Welinske and Paul O'Rear discuss the current and future status of Microsoft Help v. 3, a new client help system. Initially shipping as the product help system for the next wave of Visual Studio products, this system is being positioned to potentially become available to all Windows developers in the near future. This would be the first wide release of a help system from Microsoft since HTML Help 1. The upcoming release with Visual Studio 10 will be offering a system for delivering context sensitive Help that represents a major upgrade from the current HTML Help standard. Some of the factors that distinguish this from past efforts:
- Browser neutral, Cross-browser capable
- XHTML/XML-based markup
- Offline and/or online content storage
- The possibility of using it on non-Windows platforms
Captivate Tips and Tricks • Joe Ganci
Captivate is easy-to-use, but it often is not used to its full potential. Its many
features are not always well-known and, as a result, that leads to underpowered
e-Learning.
In this session you will learn the tips and tricks the experts use for creating
superb e-Learning using Adobe Captivate 4. You will learn how to maximize the investment
you've made in Captivate, and use all its features to create the best e-Learning possible.
Take your productivity to the next level, and make the results shine!
Best Practices for Embedded UA • Scott DeLoach
This session focuses on best-in-class examples of web-based embedded user assistance (UA). We will discuss different display options that can be used to provide field-level, procedural, and conceptual information. We will also explore best practices for embedded UA, including how to integrate embedded UA with an external help system and how to use new technologies such as AJAX to provide dynamic user assistance.
— YOU WILL LEARN —
- Why embedded UA is effective
- How to select an embedded UA approach
- Which information types are best suited to embedded UA
- How to integrate embedded UA with an external help system
- How to provide dynamic user assistance with AJAX and other technologies
Personalizing and Customizing the User Assistance Experience • Doug Bolin
Our session will be divided into four main sections focusing on real-life case studies and best practices:
- An overview of the user experience design process for personalized user assistance. These key information architecture and content strategy principles, activities and deliverables will help you guarantee the success of your personalized user assistance.
- Specific best practices and case studies that show how users can be empowered to dynamically customize and personalize online support, product operating instructions, how to's and quickstart guides.
- An overview of emerging best practices in both evaluating online personalized user assistance and optimizing user assistance content with three types of cost-effective evaluation.
- An in-depth globalization case study, one that goes far beyond translation, to illustrate best practices for creating core sets of user assistance assets that can be rapidly and cost-effectively localized and personalized for many different cultures and markets.
— YOU WILL LEARN —
- Core principles to keep in mind when designing personalized online user experiences for user and product support
- Key success factors for information architecture, content strategy and technical infrastructure when it comes to designing and delivering personalized user assistance
- How personalized online user assistance experiences can act as powerful branding and customer loyalty tools
- The role of user generated content and communities in providing personalized online user assistance
- Best practices for delivering personalized user assistance content online via rich media
DITA Progress Report: DITA 1.2, New Markets, and DITA Help • Stan Doherty
This session will provide an overview of the progress that the DITA standard has made in 2009. We will explore mini-demos of new DITA features, including:
- keyref
- constraint mechanisms
- general task type
- content reference "push" and content references to ranges of elements
- coderef calls to text files
- text fragment reuse
- DITA map topic collections
We will also discuss the current state of DITA in publishing and non-publishing markets, the various tools that support DITA, and how multiple Help implementations are being created from DITA source files.
Flare Tips and Tricks • Scott DeLoach
This session will show you how to get the most out of MadCap Flare. We will discuss best practices and little-known tips for importing content from Word, and FrameMaker, using condition tags, designing stylesheets, developing page layouts, reusing content, and using DITA. I will also provide a quick reference card to attendees that can be used as a reference at work.
— YOU WILL LEARN —
- How to import content from RoboHelp, Word, and FrameMaker
- How to effectively use condition tags to single source projects
- How to create and use styles, style classes, print styles, and table styles
- How to use advanced printed documentation features, including headers and footers, chapter breaks, and auto numbering
- How to efficiently use variables and snippets
- How to import DITA content into Flare
- How to find all of the "hidden" features in Flare
Ten Tips toward Improvement and Success with Your eLearning • Joe Ganci
UA professionals are increasingly looking to eLearning components as an important element in providing our users with comprehensive support. Interactive tutorials and simulations can provide deeper level of understanding about our products than some traditional forms of UA. However, developing effective eLearning comes with its own set of challenges. In this session, training expert Joe Ganci provides a collection of his favorite techniques for successfully executing your e-learning projects, choosing the authoring tools that best serve your needs, saving money while ensuring quality, and how to recover when things don't go as you planned. Attendees of all experience levels will find this session to be a wealth of useful tips about eLearning.
UA Design and Implementation for iPhone Apps • Joe Welinske
The iPhone application development market has exploded since Apple opened the App store. Apple recently celebrated the one millionth application developed for their mobile platform. For UA developers this represents a new market for our services. It is also an area with numerous challenges in uncharted waters.
All mobile apps can benefit from improved UI text. Word choices are extremely important with minimal screen real estate. What words and phrases are best for optimal communication.
While many, if not most, mobile apps are fairly simplistic, there is a rapidly growing list of application with relatively robust capabilities. Micro-concise instructions regarding difficult concepts can significantly improve a users initial experience with the mobile app.
Many of the more robust apps work in concert with web-based applications and knowledgebases. How do you best integrate content displayed on a desktop or laptop with that of the mobile app.
In this session, you'll learn how these issues were handled in several iPhone application projects by the presenter as part of ongoing UA consulting in the mobile space.
NOTE: WritersUA reserves the right to alter any part of the published program, if necessary.
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