On Saturday, March 13, 2010, STC-SWO will present Planning and Implementing Minimalist Documentation for Maximum Return-on-Investment, led by Alan Houser, Group Wellesley, Inc. The all-day (8:30 am – 4:00 pm) workshop will be held at Cincinnati State Community and Technical College.
Creating minimalist documentation is more than just reducing the word count. Minimalist documentation focuses on developing and writing content that meets users’ needs. Other benefits of minimalist documentation include:
- Effectively addresses different learning styles
- Improves the usability of the documentation
- Reduces production and translation costs
- Maximizes content reusability
If you are a technical communicator, an IT professional, a communication manager—or anyone else interested in maximizing the benefits and the competitive advantage of documentation materials—this full-day workshop will provide information you need to design the most effective explanations and instructions for your customers, so they can use your products.
This workshop introduces you to minimalism and offers information on best practices and technologies, such as:
- User personas
- Task analysis
- Information typing
- DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture) as an example of minimalist documentation
Here’s what you will learn:
- The motivation for minimalism: Why do it, based on how users use documentation
- How to design technical documentation with users in mind
- How to determine appropriate documentation coverage for your product or service
- How to perform a user and task analysis: your roadmap for documentation coverage
- How to define documentation structure and organization
- How to write minimalist content
- Strategies for adopting a minimalist documentation approach in your organization
Alan Houser, president of Group Wellesley, Inc., of Pittsburgh, PA, is a distinguished consultant and trainer in the fields of XML, XML technologies, publishing workflows, and authoring and publishing tools. He holds an M.A. in Professional Writing and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. Alan is an Associate Fellow of the Society for Technical Communication, a member of the OASIS DITA Technical Committee, and a popular presenter at technical communication conferences.
This extensive, thorough, and immediately useful full-day workshop, presented by an acknowledged leader in the field, is yours for:
STC Members…………$55.00
Non-members………..$95.00
Students……………….$45.00
A box lunch and beverages are included in the registration fee.
Registrations and payments must be received by March 5, 2010. Make checks payable to STC-SWO Workshop. Send checks to STC-SWO Treasurer, c/o TeichTMC, 8674 Cottonwood Drive, Cincinnati, OH 45231. To pay by PayPal, send funds to treasurer@stc-swo.org
Registrants will receive specific information about the location and directions.
The support of the following sponsors is gratefully acknowledged:
Cincinnati State Community and Technical College
