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Designing for the Human Visual System
Dr. Colin Ware
Designing for the Human Mind
Dr. Deborah J. Mayhew
Web Page Interactivity: Java & JavaScript
James Currie
The Wireless Web
Neil Perlin
Web Page Interactivity: Server Components
James Currie
eBooks: Revolutionizing Digital Workflow
Donna Dunn (Adobe Systems, Inc.)
Web Tools & Technologies: Questions & Answers
Grant Communications
FrameMaker & XML: Generating Structured Information
Donna Dunn (Adobe Systems, Inc)
Design & Structure of Embedded Help Systems
Dr. David Locke
Designing Web Pages Using Cascading Style Sheets
Joel Sklar
Designing Graphics for the Web
Grant Communications
XML for Technical Communicators
Neil Perlin
Numbering documents in Adobe FrameMaker
Adobe Certified Trainer
Marker Management in FrameMaker
Adobe Certified Trainer
Simulation Strategies for Web-Based Training
Dr. Margaret Driscoll
Writing World-Ready Information
Hans Fenstermacher & Lynne Nadeau
Making Online Learning Adaptive
Pamela Kostur
Reader-Oriented Writing
Stephen Murphy
Bringing Your Documents to Life with Adobe Acrobat
Bernard Aschwanden
Developing Single-Source Information
Pamela Kostur
English Grammar: Picture It Easy
Norris Learnard
How
to Index Online Information
Susan Holbert
Learning Portals: Harnessing the Power of Information
Debra Murphy
From
Whence We Came: A Walk Through Publishing History &
Technologies
Michael Doyle
Creating Effective Content for Multimedia & the
Web
Timothy Garrand
Corporate Communications: Structure vs Chaos
Norris Learnard
RoboHELP Tips & Tricks (double session)
Dr. David Locke
Word & FrameMaker: Fostering Peaceful Coexistence
Bernard Aschwanden
Adobe FrameMaker: New Features in 6.0
Bernard Aschwanden
The Wireless Web (follow on to Neil's talk)
Neil Perlin
Overview of WebWorks Publisher 6
Quadralay Certified Trainer
Introduction to Macromedia Dreamweaver
Grant Communications
Designing Templates in Macromedia Dreamweaver
Grant Communications
RoboHELP HTML for Beginners
eHelp Certified Trainer
Overview of XML
Neil Perlin
Understanding Cascading Style Sheets
Joel Sklar
Structuring Content for Interactive Media
Dr. Timothy Garrand
Overview of ForeHelp HTML
ForeHelp Authorized Trainer
Getting the Best from your Project Team
Doris Kovic
Keynotes
Please
keep in mind that there are only 280 seats available for
each keynote session, and those seats are made available to
the first 280 to register.
Designing
for the Human Visual System
Dr. Colin Ware
The human
visual system occupies more than 40% of the cortex of the
brain. It is a pattern finding machine without equal and pattern
finding can be regarded as a kind of visual problem solving.
Dr Colin Ware is the leading expert in applying what we know
about human perception to problems in information display.
His recent book on information visualization has become an
indispensable resource to both researchers and professionals
interested in understanding the visual science of display
design. The presentation will be an overview of key design
lessons to be learned from vision science, progressing from
the retina to the higher levels of the brain.
Key topics
will be: Low-level vision, the spotlight of attention, pre-attentive
processing and what jumps off the page; elementary pattern
perception, and how it applies to organizing space; simple
motion for displaying causality; space perception and the
question of whether 3D is better; the natural grammar of objects
and creating understandable 3D diagrams; dual coding theory
and the problem of linking pictures and words.
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The technical
specialty areas of Technical Writing/Documentation, Technical
Training, Electronic Performance Support and User Interface
Design all have in common the goal of imparting information
and procedures to people efficiently and effectively in order
to promote performance and productivity. In the software industry,
as hardware and software platforms get more and more sophisticated
and capable and the Web becomes one of the primary platforms
for delivering software products, the focus on ways to promote
performance and productivity through software is shifting
away from documentation and training, and away from embedded
performance support and toward product user interface design.
More and
more (as on the Web), users expect to be able to simply walk
up and use software, without training, without documentation,
without Help systems. This shift in industry focus has inspired
many a documentation and training professional to consider
a career shift into product user interface design. While professionals
in these different disciplines tend to come from different
academic and experiential backgrounds (Writing, Education,
Psychology) and design different types of products (user manuals
and Help systems, courseware, product user interfaces), the
truth is that media-specific guidelines and techniques for
designing good documentation, good training, good on-line
help and good product user interfaces are all based on the
same foundation: basic, general principles of human cognition.
Understanding
the underlying principles of human cognition allows one to
more readily perceive the commonalities across design disciplines,
and thus more readily translate skills from one discipline
to another. In this keynote speech, Dr. Mayhew will present
an interactive and entertaining crash course in human cognition,
aimed at introducing documentation and training professionals
to the underlying, general, media-independent principles of
human information processing. This introduction is aimed at
helping them begin to leverage their current skill-set in
order to more effectively and efficiently contribute to product
user interface design, either as key collaborators or as aspiring
product user interface designers themselves.
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Technology
Sessions
Web
Page Interactivity: Java & JavaScript
James Currie
In this
session you will learn about the complementary components
of Java and JavaScript for enhancing web interactivity. We
will describe and discuss "slick" versus functional interactivity;
JavaScript and object hierarchy embedded within HTML; object-oriented
programming concepts; Java programming; embedding applets
within HTML, and more.
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In less
than eighteen months, the wireless web has gone from a technical
curiosity to the cover of Parade. What is it, and how will
it affect technical communicators? This session describes
the market forces driving the wireless web; introduces its
standards, technologies, and tools; and describes how it may
change how we plan, design, and write content in the first
decade of the 21st century.
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Web
Page Interactivity: Server Components
James Currie
In this
session you will learn about the components and concepts of
Web servers and how to use readily available elements for
a fully functional interactive Web presence. We will describe
and discuss various types of web servers such as Apache and
Microsoft IIS; cookies and their capabilities; browser security;
interactive form processing, and more.
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The new
word in the publishing industry isn't a word at all. It's
a letter — "e" — as in eBooks. If you haven't
noticed that eBooks are threatening to revolutionize the publishing
industry, you haven't been doing much reading,. What are eBooks
and how are they changing the publishing world? This session,
presented by Adobe Systems, will discuss how to create eBooks
with FrameMaker, and how to deliver and sell eBooks.
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Web
Tools & Technologies: Questions & Answers
Grant Communications
This forum
will be a completely open architecture environment; any question
goes to our panel of web engineering experts. Available will
be professionals answering server strategy questions, advantages
and disadvantages of ASP vs. CGI, how to develop a comprehensive
multi-stage deployment schedule, site mapping and graphics
design elements. You bring the questions; we'll get you the
answers!
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For seasoned
FrameMaker users, working with structure may be confusing.
This sessino will explain how to work with structure in FrameMaker+SGML
and how to generate valid XML for reuse in a cross-media publishing
environment.
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Design
& Structure of Embedded Help Systems
Dr. David Locke
It has
taken us years to get help off the desk and on the screen.
Even now, we're just beginning to understand the relationship
between the user interface and a well-designed help system
that uses context sensitive help (CSH). Building good and
functional CSH requires two things: a design that integrates
CSH with the interface and with other help forms; and a structure
and method to implement it that leaves software developers
and help writers productive colleagues rather than sworn enemies.
In this
session we examine both aspects of good CSH, design and structure.
In design, we chronicle briefly the evolution of CSH including
its early, under-developed forms and more recent embedded
achievements. For structure, we examine the machinery of implementing
CSH in several environments, and suggest productive ways writers
and developers can work together to produce effective interface
designs that really do help.
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Designing
Web Pages Using Cascading Style Sheets
Joel Sklar
In this
presentation you will see how Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
brings desktop publishing capabilities to the Web, allowing
you to present your Web content in more visually exciting
ways.
Using
style sheets, you can control the display properties of markup
elements in a single web page or across an entire web site.
Powerful selection techniques let you apply style rules in
a variety of ways to the elements of a web page. Enhanced
support for CSS in the new generation of browsers means you
can start working with this easy-to-use style language today.
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We've
all seen (and waited for) the 2mb downloaded image that turns
out to be a simple animated GIF file; what was done wrong?
How to do it right? Learn how to identify proper file characteristics,
color palettes, animated GIF's vs. JPG's on a looping timeline,
PNG and SVG file format support timetables.
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XML
for Technical Communicators
Neil Perlin
XML, Extensible
Markup Language, lets developers create custom tags and consistently
coded web applications, including documentation. More powerful
than HTML but less complex than SGML, XML has been taking
the web world by storm since the late 90s and is affecting
the documentation world as well. This session discusses XML's
background, basic concepts, and related standards, and is
aimed at technical communicators who do not plan to work in
XML at the code level but who need to understand how XML works.
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Numbering
documents in Adobe FrameMaker
Adobe Certified Trainer
Numbering
in FrameMaker is very robust and, on occasions, very involved.
Learn to set up your numbering in such a way that volumes,
chapters, sections, subsections, tables, figures, procedures
and more work together. See the power of FrameMaker numbering
in a whole new light.
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Marker
Management in FrameMaker
Adobe Certified Trainer
Work with
files in FrameMaker 6.0 and create output to Portable HTML,
Dynamic HTML and more using Quadralay WebWorks Publisher Standard
Edition. This lab gives you the opportunity to create output
from FrameMaker using WebWorks Publisher and predefined templates
which are included with FrameMaker 6.0. You also have the
opportunity to customize some output formatting using Cascading
Style Sheets.
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Process
& Methodology Sessions
Simulation
Strategies for Web-Based Training
Dr. Margaret Driscoll
Web-based
training programs using simulation strategies offer dramatic
alternatives to page-turners. Simulations are a means of motivating
students by putting them in a setting and requiring them to
apply new knowledge or skill. Outstanding examples of these
kind of program can be found in continuing professional education,
commercial courses, and higher education.
After
sampling some of these award-winning programs, the benefits
of simulations are easy to understand. These programs force
learners to select, organize, and integrate knowledge, and
this results in greater motivation and enhanced transfer of
learning. This session provides in-depth exploration of four
kinds of simulations.
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In the
documentation field, technology has taken center stage like
never before. At the same time there is a growing need to
produce materials for all world markets - and to reduce spiraling
translation costs. Much attention is focused on translation
methodologies and tools like "translation memories" (TM),
but the single biggest factor in determining the quality and
cost of translation is - and always has been - the source
text itself.
This session
provides technical writers, editors, course developers, and
documentation managers with tips and techniques they can implement
immediately to improve and reduce their output by as much
as 65%, so they can cut translation costs significantly. The
session covers specific problems and solutions, and presents
a business case for the dramatic effects of improving writing
and reducing the volume of words. Session content comes from
real, published documentation and includes hands-on examples
for discussion.
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Making
Online Learning Adaptive
Pamela Kostur
Online
learning is much more than an alternate method for delivering
training. It's about giving learners access - anytime, anyplace
- to an abundance of information and knowledge, and about
adapting it to their particular needs. Ultimately, learners
should be able to direct their own online learning experience.
When people learn in a way that's adapted perfectly to their
needs, they retain more knowledge and become more productive
in the long run. In an adaptive online learning environment,
learners choose their personal learning style, or their particular
learning objective, and the appropriate learning materials
are delivered to them in the way they require.
Real interaction
happens when the learning environment can be changed, or driven,
by learners. This is difficult to incorporate into an online
learning environment and is, therefore, missing from most
web-based learning sites. This presentation will outline how
to create adaptive learning materials, using single sourcing
methodology. (Single sourcing means writing information once
and using it wherever it is required, adapting it to accommodate
its various uses, e.g., novice training, advanced training,
reference guide.) The presentation will describe:
- The
benefits of online learning
- How
to make online learning adaptive to suit learners' unique
needs, knowledge levels, and learning styles
- How
we are applying adaptive learning and single sourcing methodology
to a current project to create an "online university" for
a financial organization that educates financial advisors
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The goal
of a technical communicator is to focus solely on what the
reader needs to know and what they need to do. All other information
is unnecessary and can be eliminated. By incorporating the
findings of cognitive research, a writer will have a better
idea of what information the reader expects to see.
Cognitive
research theory on how humans learn, store and retrieve information
is important to the writer because by understanding and leveraging
how people learn, the writer can then design information in
a way that is compatible with how people think. If writers
could analyze information and then structure it according
to the three principles described in this session, then readers
will learn information faster, understand it better, and remember
it longer.
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Bringing
Your Documents to Life with Adobe Acrobat
Bernard Aschwanden
Under
the impression that Adobe Acrobat is just for static documents?
This session shows you how to breathe life and interactivity
into your documents. This session demonstrates how to use
Acrobat to include video, sound, hypertext links, interactive
forms, rollover effects, and much more within your PDF documents.
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Developing
Single-Source Information
Pamela Kostur
Writers
often have to create documents for different audiences, for
different media (e.g., web, Help, training), and for different
platforms. Single sourcing information can help writers to
accommodate all possible uses and audiences. Single sourcing
involves identifying all information requirements up front,
then developing them from a single source. All information
types required by a particular project (e.g., brochures, user
guides, training materials, online Help, external web site)
are created from the single file, hence the name--single sourcing.
This presentation
describes:
What single
sourcing is and when it is appropriate
How to
implement single sourcing, focusing on how to build information
models (information models outline all the possible uses and
users of the information and indicate how information will
be reused across different information products)
The benefits
of single sourcing
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English
Grammar: Picture It Easy
Norris Learnard
Correct
English grammar should be both fun to learn and easy to use.
The traditional way of teaching grammar confuses many individuals.
We shun tradition by teaching grammatical structures as puzzles
and pieces of puzzles made up of pictures representing the
eight parts of speech. Build a puzzle, plug in the words represented
by the pictures, and write correct grammar structures from
the simplest to the most complex. Not your old grammar teacher's
method. If grammar is not one of your strengths, we can make
it one.
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How
to Index Online Information
Susan Holbert
A good
index plays an important role in increasing user satisfaction
with both printed manuals and online help systems. This workshop
focuses on how to apply and adapt indexing principles to online
help. Learn how to write help files with indexing in mind,
as well as how to choose keywords so users can find what they're
looking for.
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Learning
Portals: Harnessing the Power of Information
Debra Murphy
Learning
portals continue to blur the lines between information and
training. The enabling technology behind an online learning
portal provides the backbone for a self-sustaining learning
community; writers and course developers provide the building
blocks that allow learners to access the right information
at the right time.
Key to
the development of a successful learning portal:
Understanding
the key business challenges and directions of the target organization
Defining
the people skills, knowledge and behaviors required to drive
the business
Determining
the most effective learning interventions in order to meet
the audience needs (how to best build organizational competencies
via training or information)
Understanding
how, when and why to use distance-learning technologies vs.
instructor-led training
Knowing
how to design information and learning products that can be
most easily accessed and used via a learning portal
Knowing
how and why to build a business case for offering a learning
portal as an information and training solution
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From
Whence We Came: A Walk Through Publishing History & Technologies
Michael Doyle
From primitive
cave paintings to web pages, the progression of communicating
information -- particularly technical information -- is a
path that has many lessons for technical communicators today.
Although Mike Doyle's specialty is web tools and technologies,
this walk through publishing history will really focus on
understanding the technologies that have led to the approach
of technical publishing today. Come appreciate the technological
advances and the people who made them; from movable type to
Albrecht Durer to Mergenthaler machines to web publishing!
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Creating
Effective Content for Multimedia & the Web
Timothy Garrand
Drawing
from his experience as a Web interactive architect and from
the research for the recently published 2nd edition of his
book, Writing for Multimedia and the Web, Garrand explains
how to master the many techniques required to create effective
Web and multimedia content. In a review of Garrand's book,
Andrew Nelson of Britannica.com wrote, "Garrand remains the
"go-to" guy for anyone wanting to know how to make sure Web
site and multimedia content has an impact on their desired
audience."
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Corporate
Communications: Structure vs Chaos
Norris Learnard
This presentation
points out the chaotic state of communication in the corporate
world. In an era where standards govern almost every facet
of our lives and the products we live with, one area severely
lacking such standards is that of written communications.
The design
of written products is completely left to the whim of the
individual writer, producing as many translations of subjects
as there are authors. Interpreting these messages is a frustrating
and painful reader experience. This talk identifies the problems
that produce chaos and presents resolutions to them. The result
is a paradigm that eliminates problems readers experience
and creates a clear, concise, and consistent standard for
the world of corporate communications.
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MiniLabs
 RoboHELP
Tips & Tricks (double session)
Dr. David Locke
RoboHELP
Office version 9, eHelp Corporation's latest spin on its online
authoring tool, offers major improvements and a host of new
features. In this session, we'll push the limits of RoboHELP
and its products. With a sample project, we'll illustrate
ways to be more productive, expand creativity, and shorten
development time. Bring your own challenging projects for
a master class-style presentation and collaborative review.
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Word
& FrameMaker: Fostering Peaceful Coexistence
Bernard Aschwanden
Why can't
companies just decide on one? If you are in a multi-tool environment
using both Word and FrameMaker, how can you get the best results
from Word files as they convert to FrameMaker? This lab session
gives you the opportunity to create content in Word and import
it to a Frame template. See the problems that arise and ways
to work around them.
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Adobe
FrameMaker: New Features in 6.0
Bernard Aschwanden
Many technical
publication groups have selected FrameMaker as the strategic
tool of choice for their organization. What's new with FrameMaker
6.0? How does it improve on previous releases? This session
is your opportunity to see the new version and decide how
to move ahead.
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The
Wireless Web (follow on to Neil's talk)
Neil Perlin
This minilab
builds on the wireless web session. You'll build an online
reference manual using WordPad in order to see the underlying
tags (and develop an appreciation for GUI authoring tools),
and display the resulting site via a wireless web emulator.
No experience is required. ForeHelp HTML Minilab - In this
minilab, you'll create an HTML Help file complete with topics,
links, and navigation tabs, and convert it to a platform-independent
and browser-independent format. Familiarity with HTML Help
concepts is helpful but not necessary.
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Overview
of WebWorks Publisher 6
Quadralay Certified Trainer
Work with
files in FrameMaker 6.0 and create output to Portable HTML,
Dynamic HTML and more using Quadralay WebWorks Publisher Standard
Edition. This lab gives you the opportunity to create output
from FrameMaker using WebWorks Publisher and predefined templates
which are included with FrameMaker 6.0. You also have the
opportunity to customize some output formatting using Cascading
Style Sheets.
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Learn
what all the hype is; templates, libraries, javascripted behaviors,
extensions. Dreamweaver is, simply stated, the web professional's
tool of choice. Come see how it all works...
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Designing
Templates in Macromedia Dreamweaver
Grant Communications
Ever want
to make a simple change to your site's navigation, then realize
your main level navigation extends across 300 pages? Welcome
to templates in Dreamweaver, where seperate call out areas
can be protected or unprotected for general site updates,
and navigation is changed site-wide with one simple change...
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RoboHELP
HTML for Beginners
eHelp Certified Trainer
An overview
of the process of creating and editing Help systems using
RoboHELP HTML Edition -- the industry standard in Help authoring.
This session will introduce many of the key Help-specific
features included RoboHELP Office, and provide tips on how
to speed and improve the authoring process using RoboHELP's
many powerful companion utilities and tools.
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This minilab
builds on the XML session. You'll use a GUI development tool
to convert an HTML file to XHTML and XML, examine the differences
in the three formats, add format controls to the resulting
files, and view the results in a browser. Familiarity with
HTML and CSS is helpful but not required.
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Understanding
Cascading Style Sheets
Joel Sklar
In this
hands-on lab you will get a chance to experiment with CSS
style language and test the results in different browsers.
Through a series of exercise you will learn how easy it is
to add CSS style to transform basic HTML to richly styled,
more visually interesting web pages. Prerequisite - working
knowledge of HTML.
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Structuring
Content for Interactive Media
Dr. Timothy Garrand
This session
provides an overview of the basic tools & processes used
to create the information architecture (structure & navigation)
for Web and multimedia content. Topics covered include:
site maps
- wireframes
- outlines
- process
flows
Hands-on
exercises with Inspiration Software (a visual design tool)
and an HTML WYSIWYG editor. Additional tools will also be
demonstrated.
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Overview
of ForeHelp HTML
ForeHelp Authorized Trainer
In this
minilab, you'll create an HTML Help file complete with topics,
links, and navigation tabs, and convert it to a platform-independent
and browser-independent format. Familiarity with HTML Help
concepts is helpful but not necessary.
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Executive
Coach
Getting
the Best from your Project Team
Doris Kovic
 A
High Performance Team can out execute the competition. It is creative and works
energetically to achieve high quality, planned results. These teams assume responsibility
for the teams output and provide support for each other in clearing away obstacles
to the teams success.
Turning
work groups into teams is essential to an organization's survival.
The organization really thrives when the team becomes a high
performance team.
Led by
executive coach Doris Kovic, this session will focus on methods
and approaches to developing your own high performance team.
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