Category: Technical Communications

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Writing & Grammar: Answers to Confusing Words for 100

by Jennie Ruby View our profile on LinkedIn
 
Answers to my Confusing Words for 100 challenge are brought to you by Cathy A. Mackie:
  1. What will the effect/affect of the new restrictions be?(noun)
  2. The new director will effect/affect some changes in the current policy. (verb – exception when effect can mean to bring about or accomplish)
  3. The revisions to the software will effect/affect how we use it. (verb)
  4. How will the new functions effect/affect our template?(verb)
  5. What effect/affect will the new interface have on our compliance initiative? (noun)
  6. The change is to/too difficult to explain over the phone.
  7. I want to upgrade the operating system, to/too.
  8. The file is to/too large to fit on my flash drive.
  9. The goal is to/too enhance functionality without increasing costs.
  10. To/too encourage use, we will offer to/too/two new incentives.
Other correct answers came in from Tara Allen, Gail Kelleher, Geri Moran, Ginny Supranowitz, and Kay Honaker. To the many, many respondents who missed number 2, note Cathy's comment: Effect can sometimes be used as a verb meaning to put into effect. If you think of the verb affect as meaningchange, it becomes clear that The new director will change some changes in the current policy doesn't quite work.
 
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Confusing Words for 200
  
Let's tackle two more sets of confusing words: than/then and adept/adapt/adopt.
  
Than is for comparisons, then is for sequence.
  
Adept means skilled, adapt means to alter for a particular use, and adopt means to take as your own.

  1. The Washington Monument is taller than/then the Capitol dome.
  2. Lunch was later than/then we thought.
  3. The paddleboard is much longer than/then most surf boards.
  4. First we paddled up the creek, than/then we paddled down.
  5. The mouth of the Magothy River is much wider than/then the mouth of the Severn.
  6. The instructors were much more adept/adapt/adopt at maneuvering than/then the beginners were.
  7. We wanted to adept/adapt/adopt the puppy, but first it needed some shots.
  8. How adept/adapt/adopt are you at balancing on a floating board?
  9. You have to adept/adapt/adopt your stance to the circumstances.
  10. Is there some way we can adept/adapt/adopt this oar, which is much too long, for use with a canoe?

Feel free to post your answers as comments below.

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If you love Jennie's articles, you'll love her classes. Check out some of Jennie's mini courses.
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PowerPoint & eLearning: Create Your Own Characters

by AJ Walther Follow us on Twitter View our profile on LinkedIn

In my three-hour mini session on Optimizing PowerPoint for eLearning and Design, I discuss how to create your own eLearning characters using PowerPoint. Generally I get a few excited students who seem up to the challenge, but most students decide that it's a neat trick that they're going to go ahead and skip. I was happy to see that Tom Kuhlmann recently posted a couple of how-to videos over on the Articulate blog about how to create your own eLearning characters in PowerPoint. I was not alone in creating my own PowerPoint eLearning characters! The how-to videos are good, so I'd encourage you to go check them out. Additionally, I'd like to add some of my own tips about how I create my characters.

Start with a photo. This isn't a terribly difficult task, but you will need to ensure you won't get into any hot water with regard to copyright. Do you remember the Shepard Fairey Obama poster incident? You probably are not creating eLearning characters that will be as high profile as Fairey's Obama, but with so many ways to avoid getting into the copyright soup, why risk it? Here are some options:

In the steps below, I'll create an eLearning character based on this image:

   

  1. Insert the photo on a PowerPoint slide as large as you can. This will help with creating details.
  2. Look at the photo as if it is comprised of layers. Start drawing whatever layer is furthest back. In this photo, for example, if I am leaving out the background wall, the face would be furthest back. The shirt, tie, suit, hair, and facial features would all be layered on top of that
  3. Don't waste time trying to guess skin tones…use a color picker instead to speed up your workflow. Yes, nearly all skin colors will vary from pixel to pixel, but pick your color from a mid-range color of the face. Remember, this is a simplified illustration, not a photo-realistic reproduction. I use Color Cop, but a simple Google search will pull up lots of suitable free options.
      
  4. Use the Curve tool to draw your shapes by tracing over the object in the photo. The Scribble tool will work as well, but will likely lead to more work, as shapes will typically be bumpier and will require more point editing.
      
  5. Don't worry about perfection–you can always go in and edit points (right-click the shape and choose Edit Points).
      
  6. Every time you draw a shape, make sure to name it on the Selection Pane. (To view the Selection Pane, select Home > Arrange > Selection Pane. To rename items on the selection pane, click to select and then click again. Naming items will help you keep them straight.)
  7. Remember, you are working backward starting with the shape that is furthest from you. This means that every time you draw a shape it will be covering the next shape you want to draw. This is where the Selection Pane becomes very useful. Click the eyeball next to your named item on the selection pane to hide the shape. You'll be able to see the photo again, trace your next shape, and then view the shape that was in your way again to check your progress.
      
  8. Group small details as you go. Eyes, for example, have many small details that could easily get "lost." After you have drawn all of the eye's elements, group them together to fix this.
     
      
  9. Speaking of small details, zoom in when working with these tiny details to give you more control and make your life easier.
  10. Use textured fills, gradients, transparencies, and effects where appropriate. For my example I added a textured fill (with an altered color) for the tie, a gradient effect to the nose, shapes of varying transparency to add subtle face contours, and small shadows to the shirt collar and suit lapels.
     
     
      
  11. When you're finished, select all of the shapes, group them ([Ctrl] [G]), and save the group as a picture (right-click > Save As Picture).

Here is my finished product:

 

Character Challenge

It's your turn! Create your own character in PowerPoint and send it to me. It could be a self-portrait or that of a friend, colleague, or loved one. Even better–send me the original photo as well for a fun before and after. We'll feature your creations here next week.

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If you love AJ's articles, you'll love her Optimizing PowerPoint Design for eLearning & Presentations mini course.

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Adobe RoboHelp: Get the New Responsive Layout

by Willam Van Weelden Follow us on Twitter View our profile on LinkedIn
 
One of the hottest new features introduced in Adobe RoboHelp 11 is Responsive HTML5 layouts. The Responsive HTML5 output dynamically changes the way the content is presented based on the device the reader is using. For example, while a reader on a desktop might see a traditional table of contents on the right side of the page, someone using a smart phone will see a table of contents that is optimized for touch: 
 
Adobe RoboHelp: Two responsive layouts.  
 
Responsive HTML5 output uses Screen Layouts, the skins for HTML5 output. With these skins you can control how your output will look for your users.
 
If you have used Responsive HTML5 before, you may have seen the following layout in the gallery:
 
Adobe RoboHelp: Old Gallery  
 
The image above shows the Responsive Layout as it was delivered when RoboHelp 11 was released. You'll be happy to know that Adobe released an update of this layout with the RoboHelp 11.0.1 patch.However, even if you have installed the patch you may still be using the old layout.
 
While Adobe provided instructions on how to manually install the new Responsive HTML5 layout, they are hidden away in the release notes and you likely missed them. If so, here they are:
  1. Close RoboHelp.
  2. Using Windows Explorer, search for%appdata%\Adobe\RoboHTML. 
    (The RoboHTML folder hidden within your AppData folder opens.)
    Adobe RoboHelp: Searching for the RoboHTML folder within AppData.
  3. Rename the folder 11.00 to 11.00_old.
    (A new 11.00 folder will be created when you restart RoboHelp.)
  4. Start RoboHelp.
You can now use the improved Responsive Layout for your output:
  
Adobe RoboHelp: New Responsive Layout.
 
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Looking to learn RoboHelp? We offer a live, two-day online RoboHelp class once a month. Feel free to contact us to learn other ways to meet your RoboHelp training requirements.
 
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Technical Communications: Small Steps to a Giant Leap…

by Tony Self Follow us on Twitter View our profile on LinkedIn
 
Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the Moon, was born just twenty-eight years after Charles Lindbergh, who was the first person to fly non-stop across the Atlantic Ocean. In just one human generation, technology had progressed from fabric covered craft (with a speed of 130 mph and a range of 4,000 miles) to a liquid oxygen powered rocket ship that traveled at speeds of up to 25,000 mph (on a trip that covered 500,000 miles).

Technological change is not new, but the pace of change in some fields is breathtaking. Battery technology is one example, and photo-voltaics is another. And of course, technology associated with reading is experiencing a dramatic rate of change.

How do people cope with rapid change in their fields? Neil Armstrong learned to fly in 1945… a time when the sound barrier was considered to be an impenetrable barrier. By the time of Armstrong's first posting as a US Navy pilot in 1950, the sound barrier had been broken, and the first jet fighter squadrons had been formed. In 1957, Armstrong flew a rocket-powered aircraft for the first time. By 1960 he had flown at close to 4,000 mph (six times the speed of sound) to heights of 120,000 feet. Armstrong managed this transition as a pilot by continually learning. Over 10 years, he progressed from subsonic jets, to transonic jets, to supersonic jets, to rocket aircraft. Each step was relatively small, but overall it was a giant leap (to quote a phrase Armstrong later used when he stepped from Apollo 11).

How does Neil Armstrong's journey into space relate to technical communication? Consider that it only took 10 years for us to move from typewriters (1980) to laser printers (1990), from text-only Web browsers (1993) to websites with embedded movies (2003).

The Apollo 11 story can provide another lesson for technical communicators. As the name implies, Armstrong's Apollo 11 mission was the eleventh in a program of 20 missions. The program objective was landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. Each mission was part of a broad strategy… part of a far-sighted plan.

Big projects only reach their goals if they come with a comprehensive plan. Like many projects, there can be hurdles and disasters. The Apollo 1 spacecraft exploded on the launch pad, killing the three astronauts. The next three missions were unmanned flights to test systems. Each mission validated a different system. The unmanned Apollo 5 orbited the earth. Apollo 6 tested the Saturn V propulsion. Apollo 7 was a manned orbit. Apollo 8 circumnavigated the moon. Apollo 9 tested the lunar module, and 10 was a dress rehearsal. In documentation, this might be called iterative development. Unit testing is another IT term that might apply.

For large documentation or training projects, an Apollo approach is a good model. Here are some small steps to success:

  • Meticulously plan
  • Set achievable budgets and deadlines
  • Clearly state business goals
  • Develop a content strategy
  • Create prototypes and proof-of-concepts
  • Test and choose the right tools
  • Keep learning
  • Encourage your team
  • Continually check progress against the plan

and… most important…

  • Think big

Looking back, you'll see how those small steps became a giant leap.

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Localization: Training and Development in Greece

by Jen Weaver Follow us on Twitter View our profile on LinkedIn

Ah, Greece. Financial troubles aside, this country is known for fantastic food and beautiful Mediterranean beaches. Kick back at your desk with some fresh olives and feta as we explore common cultural facts about the Greeks and their expectations when it comes to training and development.

Test Your Knowledge of Greek Culture

  1. What board game is considered a national pastime?
  2. True or False. Aristotle was Plato's teacher.

Quick Tips for Training & Development in Greece1:

  • Greeks tend to be physically and emotionally demonstrative. It's customary to hug, kiss, or show other signs of physical affection to friends and loved ones in public. Don't be surprised if your Greek counterparts breech your personal space bubble.
  • Surprise, surprise, Greek is the official language in Greece and is written in the Greek alphabet. Romanian, not English, is the second most commonly spoken language, so be sure to come prepared with translated materials–and likely an interpreter–when training in this culture.
  • For business meetings, it's ideal to have your business card translated, English on the front, Greek on the back, and present it to your counterpart with the Greek side facing up.
  • Objective facts will not take precedence over subjective feelings or ideological beliefs. As such, it's important to establish relationships before attempting any negotiations or drastic changes within an organization. Group consensus is huge in this culture.
  • An individual's social position gives security and structure to the individual, so be mindful of social cues in public interactions or business meetings. For example, the senior members of a group are typically afforded higher levels of respect and are served first at meals.
  • It is not necessary to set an ending time for appointments as it's considered more important to complete the objective or build a good connection than to end the meeting promptly. Always arrive on time for meetings, but your Greek counterparts will likely have a more relaxed view of punctuality.
  • Older generations of Greeks signify "no" with an upward head nod. This can be confusing as many members of the younger generations have started using the American head movements to indicate "yes" and "no." When in doubt, clarify their response.

Answers to the Questions from Above:

  1. Backgammon.
  2. False. Plato was Aristotle's teacher.

References:

 1Morrison, Terri, & Conaway, Wayne A. (2006). Kiss, bow, or shake hands (2nd ed.). Avon: Adams Media.
 
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Developing international training and development materials? Contact Jen at Carmazzi Global Solutions.

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Adobe Captivate 8: Custom Workspaces

by Kevin Siegel Follow us on Twitter View our profile on LinkedIn View our videos on YouTube

From a new user perspective, one of the major complaints about Adobe Captivate has always been its cluttered user interface. There are so many panels and toolbars in Captivate (and most are open and visible when the program starts), some people feel that the program is more difficult to learn than other tools like Articulate Storyline and TechSmith Camtasia Studio. 

People using Captivate versions 5, 6, and 7 have the ability to undock most of Captivate's panels and move them around the screen. Users can also save the location of the panels as custom workspaces (via Window > Workspaces > New Workspace). 
 
While being able to customize Captivate's workspace is great, if you aren't careful things can quickly become a hot mess. I can't tell you how many emails I get from developers who can't find this panel or that. In almost every instance it turns out they either closed the panel by mistake, or moved it to a second display and forgot. 
 
You can easily reset a Workspace (Window > Workspace > Reset) and get every panel back to its default location. However, many developers (even some with plenty of experience using the tool), don't know about resetting a Captivate workspace.

When Adobe released Adobe Captivate 8, the interface was totally overhauled–and simplified. To prevent new users from getting overwhelmed by Captivate's many toolbars and panels, toolbars have been consolidated and most of the panels are closed by default. To keep the interface from getting cluttered, it's now impossible to undock the panels. And, for the ultimate in interface simplification, you can no longer create a custom workspace.

The simpler interface is great for new users. But what about veteran developers who are upgrading from a legacy version of Captivate? As a long-time Captivate developer, I'll admit that I had a hard time navigating the new workspace. And I was upset with Adobe for taking away my ability to create a custom workspace. I understand that a simpler workspace is easier for new users… but I want complex. Give me back my workspaces!
 
If you're like me and you're missing the ability to customize your workspace, you'll be happy to learn that the option is still available… you'll just have to activate it.

In the image below, you can see Captivate's Workspace menu. There's really only one menu item: Reset 'Classic.' If you choose the Reset 'Classic' menu item, the Timeline and the Properties panel will hide (which is the default).

Adobe Captivate 8: Workspace menu before custom workspaces is enabled.

If you'd like to create your own workspace, open Captivate's Preferences dialog box (Windows users, choose Edit > Preferences; Mac users, choose Adobe Captivate > Preferences.) Select Enable custom workspaces/panel undocking.

Adobe Captivate 8: Enable custom workspaces.

Restart Captivate and you'll find that you can now undock Captivate's panels and move them around your display (just like legacy versions of the program). And if you choose the Window > Workspace menu item, you'll see that you also have the ability to create a New Workspace. 

Adobe Captivate 8: Workspace menu after custom workspaces is enabled.

If you tire of your custom workspace you can, at any time, return to Captivate's 'Classic' workspace (which will always be available in the Workspace menu).
 
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Looking for instructor-led training on Adobe Captivate? Check out our live, online, instructor-led Captivate classes.
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eLearning: Create Icons Instantly with Iconion

by AJ Walther Follow us on Twitter View our profile on LinkedIn

Previously I shared some tips for creating your own great looking flat design eLearning. A recurring trend in flat design is the use of simplified icons in lieu of detailed drawings, images, or photos. Many icons can be found by inserting symbols or certain Clip Art images from within PowerPoint. Creating your own icons from scratch is also not terribly difficult. As an alternative, I'd like to share a fun (and free!) tool for quickly creating and customizing icons for use in eLearning.

Iconion is a free download that is still currently in Beta. After you've downloaded Iconion, you can choose from a large array of icons from four different icon font sets: Typeicons, Linecons, Font Awesome, and Entypo.

 

To create an icon, simply select an icon from the left of the Iconion window, preview it in the center panel, and then add a style from the right panel. The styles are many and varied and, in addition to looking great in your eLearning, would blend seamlessly with Windows and iOS. After you've chosen a style, you can make stylistic tweaks to fills, background colors, gradients, blurs, etc. From there you can save your icon to your desktop in a number of fully scalable sizes. Fast, easy, and great looking!

Here's an example of how I incorporated some icons from Iconion into the slide deck for an online training course here at IconLogic:

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eLearning: Creating Flat Design Images from PowerPoint’s Clip Art

by AJ Walther Follow us on Twitter View our profile on LinkedIn
 
Want to design something that looks fresh and modern? You may want to consider Flat Design. Flat design is an aesthetic that rids the design of any three dimensional attributes. Generally, drop shadows, gradients, outlines, and textures are avoided. When gradients are used, they subtly fade from one color to a slightly different hue of the same color. It is common to see a heavy reliance on icons and banners with close attention to the color palette and font choice.

Many of us are working with shoestring budgets while creating eLearning. This means we are often relegated to the world of free clip art for our eLearning images. Here are a few examples of how clip art images can be reimagined into flat design. For these examples I just used shapes without lines, gradients, or shadows to create new, flat images resembling the original clip art images.

  

The great thing about flat design is that with careful attention to detail, most anyone can produce their own form of attractive flat design. All of the redesigned clip art images above took very little time, effort, and PowerPoint technical expertise. But, want to know a secret? You could even take an existing clip art image and bend it into your own flat design creation without building anything from scratch. Let's look at an example.

  1. Find a clip art image that you like, but that could use a bit of help.
      
  2. With the image selected, press [ctrl] [shift] [g] on your keyboard twice to ungroup the image.

    Note: The first time you ungroup, you will be asked if you would like to convert the image to a drawing object. Click yes and then ungroup again.

     

  3. Select and delete unwanted elements. Here, I deleted each of the black lines.
      
  4. Working one shape at a time, right-click and select Edit Points to smooth each shape by editing its points. When possible, I like to get rid of as many points as possible and to set the majority of the remaining points as Smooth Points. For this particular image, I also adjusted the point of the tack to be pointier and extended the "metal" part so that the green section overlapped it.

       

    Note: New to editing points? Check out this quick tip here.

     

  5. Apply your color scheme to the image by selecting each shape individually, right-clicking, and choosing Format Shape.
      
  6. If you're going for more of a Jony Ive look (a la iPhone's OS), you can take this a bit further by adding a subtle gradient to the shapes.
      
  7. Integrate the image into your design.
      

Need some more flat design inspiration? Check out the Flat UI Design site. 

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Technical Communications: Online Versus Paper

by Tony Self Follow us on Twitter View our profile on LinkedIn

What is more effective, a print document or an online document? It wasn't all that long ago that print documents would definitely have been voted more effective, especially considering the poor quality of computer monitors and slow internet speeds. (Remember trying to pull up a document on a modem?)

Given the speed of today's internet and mobile device support, print documents are likely going the way of the dinosaur. Online documents have several advantages to their print counterparts. For instance, eBooks reflow to fit the user's device (think about how popular eBook readers such as the Amazon Kindle have become in just the past few years). Online documents are searchable, typically contain hyperlinks for easy navigation, often include videos and/or animations, and some even contain interactivity in the form of eLearning simulations created in Adobe Captivate or Articulate Storyline.

There are millions upon millions of print documents around the business world that would gain new life if they were online. The major challenge in moving from unstructured to structured documentation, or page layout to reflowing text, or paper to online, is the shift in mindset required. Simply put, many old design paradigms used for print documents don't fit in new media design.

There are many reasons for converting paper documents to online documents such as cost, efficiency of updating, document control, accessibility, and discoverability. Surprisingly, for the custodians of paper documents charged with managing the conversion, there is often a reluctance to embrace the migration from print to online. For those custodians, the paper version remains the primary document, and the online version is secondary. 

Even if the paper custodians agree to take the paper documents online, much time and effort is spent trying to imitate the paper design in the online design. For example, the paper documents are scanned and converted to PDF. While aPDF will work in an online world, a PDF is really just a digital replica of the paper document. While a PDF may open on a tablet or smartphone, it won't re-flow to fit the user's screen like an eBook.

If you're trying to convince the "powers that be" to make the move from print documentation to an online document, consider the following:

The text used in the print document may require a specific font and font size. When online content is displayed for the user, the user's device may have limited font capabilities. Even if the device is capable of displaying the font, if the user doesn't have that specific font installed on the device, the font displayed will be the browser's default. For instance, you have used Futura as the font for your content. If the user accesses your content via a web browser and does not have the Futura font on their computer, the browser will likely display Times New Roman instead.

Paragraphs may need to be indented by a specific amount. While setting up a specific indentation is easy in a print layout tool such as Adobe InDesign, the user's device may have limits to how indentations are displayed.

Headings may have to be sequentially numbered. While many print layout tools allow you to easily number paragraphs, those automatic numbers may not display properly online.

You may be required to include footnotes. While footnotes are easy to add to print documents, they're a problem online. Since there really isn't an end to a page online, where would the footnotes go?

Page numbers may no longer be valid. If your print document includes cross references (such as, "For more information, see page 11"), you could end up with a mess. If your print content is displayed as an eBook, the content that was on page 11 could now be located on page 22. If the text on the page tells the user to reference page 11, but the text is actually on page 22, you can imagine the trouble you'll have.

The graphics could be huge. In the print document, high resolution photos were used. They look great on paper. However, they're so big (in megabytes, not width or height), they'll take forever to download over the Internet if you leave them as-is. To use the images, you'll need to allow time to save the images as online versions (in jpeg or png format). When you do, the images will likely lose quality. Will they still look good?

If you do decide to migrate your print documents to the online world, off-the-shelf authoring tools such as Adobe RoboHelp and MadCap Flare will help make the process easy. Both tools allow you to quickly convert printed documentation (especially Word documents) into online documents. Both tools support cascading style sheets that handle fonts, colors, paragraph numbering, and indentation. And both tools allow you to create master pages complete with headers and footers. Nevertheless, there are limits to what any authoring tool can do when it comes to recreating the look and feel of a print document, so look into the limitations of each tool prior to moving forward. 

What's your take on print documents as compared to online documents? Is print doomed? Which medium do you think is more effective, print or online? What tool do you use to convert from print to online? Can you share instances/examples where you think print documents are more effective than online documents? Feel free to post your opinion as comments below.