Welcome to the World of Software User Assistance

Sunday

Joe Welinske, WritersUA

5:00 - 6:30pm

The application of technical communication skills to the development of software user assistance has grown immensely in the past twenty years. This specialization is very fulfilling and challenging and technical communicators are finding their role in the software development process to be increasingly valued. User assistance is much more than "Help." It encompasses a wide range of skills and technologies that are combined to improve the software user's experience. We contribute through wizards, tutorials, and web-based training. We develop and populate knowledge bases and content management systems. Printed manuals and their PDF equivalents are still an important element of our documentation sets.

Many of us are now embedding helpful content directly into the user interface. We are involved with usability testing, localization, testing, quality assurance, and branding. This presentation provides a cutting-edge overview of the latest trends in software user assistance, defines the key terminology, highlights the most important technologies, and offers predictions on future directions of our field.

— YOU WILL LEARN —

• About the key skills for UA
• About a variety of Help formats
• About emerging paradigms in IT relevant to UA
• About emerging paradigms in UA

Let's Look in the Mirror and See What We See

Monday

Hosts Matthew Ellison, Tony Self, and Joe Welinske

9:00 - 10:00am

This interactive session is all about you - with questions from you and answers from you. Using wireless response keypads, you and all your fellow attendees will get real-time feedback about yourselves as a community.

Attendees will vote on topics and get immediate feedback. All attendees are encouraged to post questions through the conference Community page for this session. As the conference approaches you will have a chance to vote on the questions you want to see get asked. And then at the event you'll find out how the community answers.

The results from your keypads will be displayed automatically on stage in real time. We will save the results and post them with the other conference materials. The questions can run the gamut from serious to silly and cover anything that you think might be of interest to user assistance professionals.

Why Join a Professional Association Like STC?

Monday

Michael Hughes, IBM Internet Security Systems

2:05 - 3:05pm

With so many channels to support professional awareness and development, is there a role for a professional association such as the Society for Technical Communication? And in particular, does it make sense for user assistance writers to belong to an association that serves a broad professional base? This presentation examines the costs and benefits of association membership and points out what unique perspective user assistance writers bring to the table and what they can expect to take away.

— YOU WILL LEARN —

• What is the base profile of a technical communicator
• Why User Assistance is the dominant genre in Technical Communication
• The wide array of hats (not HATs) a UA writer wears
• How STC supports the diverse skill sets and theoretical underpinnings of the user assistance developer

Your Choice - Topics Suggested, Chosen, and Presented by You!

Tuesday

2:45 - 3:45pm

This time period is dedicated to a series of short discussions on topics you propose, you select, and you present. Attendees are invited to propose a discussion topic that they would like to host. This could be an interesting facet of one of your projects, or a technology that you think is particularly useful, or just an idea for a new way of doing things.

Attendees will vote on the topics they are most interested in. The top fifteen topics will be divided into five separate discussion sessions that will cover three topics each.

To propose a topic, click on the Start a Conversation button in the conference Community page for this session and type a short pitch. We will present all the proposals in a poll as we get closer to the conference. If you are selected you are not required to use slides or make handouts.

User Assistance Trends Panel: Key Future Directions

Wednesday

Panel of Pundits: Host Rhonda Bracey plus Nicky Bleiel, Teresa Goertz, and Leah Guren

3:45 - 4:45pm

This panel discussion closes the conference with a cutting-edge eye to the future. We'll have predictions about trends in software user assistance, tools and technologies, and directions for information technology in general. The panel of experts represents a wide range of thought and opinion in the world of user assistance.