Emerging Skills

The nature of user assistance is always expanding as new technologies, business models, and design techniques appear. These sessions explore a variety of leading edge topics.

• Audio/Video production
• Twitter and micro-blogging
• eBook Construction
• Search Engine Optimization
• Writing for Mobile Apps
• Interaction Design
• metadata
• iPhone

Technology Update

Technologies are always emerging and evolving to drive the direction of our application and to enhance what we produce for our customers. These sessions provide overviews and update about a variety of new and important technologies.

• iPhone/iPad/Android/Windows
• eBooks and tablets
• AIR and Flash
• Linux and FLOSS

Design Strategies

Effective user assistance means designing our support information so that it is attentive to the needs of the customer while minimizing distraction from the work at hand. These sessions highlight important techniques for placing the user at the center of our development.

• Instructional Design
• Embedded Help
• User feedback and surveys
• Usability Testing
• User Interface Design
• wireframing
• gestures recognition

Tool Techniques

Get extensive, practical, and objective coverage of the most popular tool choices that are available to today's user assistance professional. Learn through hands-on computer instruction. Stockpile the latest tips and tricks.

• Acrobat
• Author-it
• Captivate
• DITA OT
• Doc-to-Help
• Flare
• FrameMaker
• Help & Manual
• HelpServer
• RoboHelp

Content Development

Communication, collaboration, and publishing are cornerstones of our work. Writing, editing, and collaborationgraphics are the core of our work. And the high cost of original content make effective management vitally important. These topics explore ways to best develop and maximize the value of our content investment.

• Structured authoring
• Content management
• Cultural dimensions
• Social networks
• Interviewing SMEs
• Agile processes
• Metadata
• programming writing
• controlled language
• User contributions
• Project Planning/mgmt

Open Standards

The software industry has increasingly turned to open standards as a foundation for future generations of software development. This interest area covers cross-platform, royalty-free technologies developed by the W3C, OASIS, and other non-profit organizations.

• XML
• HTML 5
• DITA
• XSL
• Information typing
• portals
• database-resident content
• topic access
• context-sensitive Help

Your Choice! - An Interactive Idea Market
Attendees contribute to the agenda by proposing discussion topics and presenting them. And attendees vote on the topics they would like in the agenda. Fifteen ad hoc 20-minute topics are in your hands.

Let's Look in the Mirror and See What We See
The Conference Opening Session features you! You'll use our community site to post questions in advance. During the session, using wireless response keypads, you and all your fellow attendees will get real-time feedback about yourselves as a community.

Enjoy a Private Consultation with a UA Expert
Capture valuable feedback on your work by reserving a private chat with one of several user assistance experts. You can use the Community web site to pre-plan your discussion. This first-come, first-served opportunity benefits those who register early.