Notes from 48th International STC Conference
Chicago, Illinois, May 13-16, 2001

Tell Me, Show Me, Let Me!   Beyond TV Pictures of Paper Pages

William K. Horton III and Katherine W. Horton
William Horton Consulting, Inc.

The Chicago conference was somewhat of a "coming home" for Bill Horton, who was making his first conference appearance in 5 years after establishing a commanding presence in the decade or so before. At one point, the Society had a "Presenter of the Conference" award. Horton won it so many times they finally retired it. His sessions routinely play to SRO crowds. He first made his mark with dramatic and entertaining presentations on the importance of visual communication in our profession. He then branched out into online document design and a host of other subjects. Joined by his wife Katherine, he is a highly successful independent entrepreneur who has provided consulting services (William Horton Consulting, Inc.) on technical communication to companies all over the country. This session, which hearkens back to his original theme, proved Horton has not lost his touch.

Session Description: Workers accustomed to the Web demand documentation that is more than TV pictures of paper pages. This demonstration showed how to design engaging, iinformative, meaningful interactivity.

Handouts: Available online at the presenter's company Web site.

Screen Tidbits during the Pre-Session Period

• There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.
• Computers in the future by the year 2000 may have only 1000 vacuum tubes and weigh only 1 1/2 tons.
• 64K ought to be enough for anybody.
• I predict the Internet... will soon go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse.
• I believe OS/2 is destined to be the most important operating system, and possibly program, of all time.
• Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction.
• Radio has no future.
• Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.
• X-rays will prove to be a hoax.
• In 1901 I said to my brother ... that man would not fly for 100 years (Wilbur Wright).
• There is not the slighest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will.
• Man will never each the moon, regardless of all future scientific advances.
• The problem with television is that the people must sit and keep their eyes glued on a a screen; the average American family hasn't got time for it.
• By the turn of this century, we will live in a paperless society.
• No sensible man would transact business by means of Mr. Bell's invention.
• Guitar music is going out; they will never sell. (Rejection of a Beatles audition, 1962)

Presentation

Tell Me.

• Simply dumping paper manuals online is a prevalent practice... and a major problem with Web-based documentation.
• Users: "Give me simple instructions in words I understand."
• Use checklists. They prompt and remind, guide thought and attention, reveal knowledge gaps, motivate further learning.
• Use glossaries. Use when different specialties must interact, include synonyms, show pronunciation (if unusual), add search
• Use calculators. Calculators replace long tables and complex formulas, remove mathematical ability as a barrier...and are a great give-away. For example, a user-friendly calculator on camera settings replaced several unwieldy tables that were virtually impossible to package effectively on the Web.
• "Soft" versions of calculators exist as well... for example, guiding supervisors on how to discipline employees who violate security regulations... reduced to a simple "calculator," instead of forcing the supervisor to comb back through pages of policy material. Calculator "interviews" the supervisor, then spells out disciplinary options suitable for violations of varying degrees of severity.
• Since job aids like this cannot handle all situations nor provide managerial judgment and flexibility, with soft calculators, it's very important to provide a link to a human contact as well.
• Resource database. A filtered list of resources to which employees can be referred for detailed information. Allows users to search for needed information using key words. Resource databases are suitable for electronic books and courses and many other kinds of resources; they are organized and readily available. Resource databases are costly to develop, but they are cost-effective if amortized over a large employee population.
• You can refer users to paper books on the subject. Link to a Barnes and Noble or Amazon.com site. Simply search the site and cut-and-paste deep links to the individual books. You can sometimes get a small "kickback" from the online bookstore for sales resulting from leads from your site. You can also set up your own bookstore. You can help users search the Web by embedding a window leading them to existing Internet search engines or by providing a link to search services. Link to search services Phone support is almost impossible to find in most Help systems. Support calls answered via e-mail cost about 1/20th of a live telephone support call. Thus, companies can save a great deal of technical support costs with user-friendly Web-based technical support systems... but you have to not frustrate users with endless "tunnel-downs" or phone-tree message loops. Options for Help include phone, conferencing, discussion, chat, and e-mail. The trick is tailoring the right combination for each company.
• Let users help other users. Build a community of knowledge. Practice sharing best practices (e.g., sharing work-arounds for a problem) through a discussion group. Users know more about using the product than you do. Best practices help where it hurts most. This is a way to "tiptoe" into knowledge management. This does require a good editor, to avoid proliferating unclear or erroneous information.
• Tell stories. "Video talking heads" are usually pretty deadly online, but stories can add life. Good instructors tell stories in class (it's the best way to engage and maintain attention). People love to swap and share stories.
• As an example of how a story can be effective, Horton told about a woman who was standing in a subway station that was totally littered with newspapers and other trash. She noticed one man casually pick up a couple of pieces of newspaper and place them in a trash can before boarding his train. Another young woman followed suit. Soon, nearly everybody on the platform picked up on the process. By the time the next train arrived at the station, the platform was almost completely clean. The woman still uses this story in leadership training sessions 20 years later. She wonders whether the man who picked up that first piece of newspaper had any idea what results his action triggered that day, let alone the fact that he would be serving as a role model in leadership training sessions decades later!
• Facilitate discussion with other users. Help options at bottom of procedure: Practice the procedure, ask another user, chat with technical support, e-mail technical support.
• Many users prefer to type in technical questions in a discussion group format rather than deal with live telephone exchanges. The number one reason for this was that they had a written record rather than having to take notes. In essence, personal "letters" from tech support dealing with specific user questions replace (or supplement) lengthy manuals.
• E-communities work well if refreshed regularly. Users gravitate toward them as a non-threatening forum for information sharing and problem-solving. An e-community is a virtual place where people can meet, talk, collaborate. Developers too.

Show Me.

• Graphic builds walk users gradually through a complex subject without overloading them.
• Graphic builds in PowerPoint can then be saved into HTML; it can actually be used as a simple multimedia authoring tool.
• Users like playing with simple animations.
• Webcast briefings. Online answer to videoconferencing... can save substantially on travel costs. Not suitable for complex negotiations and interchanges of information, but very effective for simple briefings to convey information. Effectiveness depends on Web presentation skills, which are not the same as conventional classroom skills, public speaking skills, or videotape presentation skills. Must be adapted to limited screen window, low resolution, etc.
• Museums and galleries. Thumbnail photos lead to individual pages on each item (similar to our digital photo collection). A search engine is de rigueur. Another option is an autoview option that just cycles through the database. Updates to individual pages are automatically updated in the gallery.
• Guided tours. The tour limits browsing to the stops listed on the main menu, avoiding users getting lost in early search of the site and also avoiding the need for a more in-depth tutorial. It takes users to key reference points, quickly improving their comfort level in exploring the larger site.

Let Me.

• "Guide me in performing a procedure on my own."
• Add practice and feedback. Key is immediate feedback through a built-in practice exercise. Presentation, practice, and feedback are combined on one page... a rudimentary knowledge object. A self-contained piece of information that can be used for training, information, or quick reference.
• Hands-on activities. Program walks the user through the exercise step by step. The break-through for this was devising a gatekeeper function that governs the user's progress through the exercise.
• Virtual laboratories. A somewhat more complex version of hands-on activities. Users enter practice HTML codes, then view a result side-by-side with the goal to gauge their progress and tweak their code (test-fix-test). Works almost like an interactive video game.
• Play games with users. Not all video games are like Doom and Mortal Combat. The presenter told the story of a 6-year-old girl and a 4-year-old boy (presumably her brother) who were playing an instructional video game on building the perfect community. The little girl filled her little utopia with parks, provided all kinds of public services, gave everybody high-paying jobs and nice houses with plenty of property, prohibited all forms of pollution from industry, etc., etc., etc. Lacking an adequate tax base due to the absence of heavy industry and saddled with the cost of abundant services, her city soon went bankrupt. She was overheard telling her brother: "You see, sometimes you have to do things people don't like or else your city won't work." Out of the mouths of babes!... In this case, a computer game actually carried a fairly sophisticated sociopolitical lesson. It engages the user by making learning more fun. As an example, instead of a fill-in-the-blank culminating exercise on a learning module, a simple crossword puzzle tested the same information. Most users who skipped the fill-in test completed the same information in the crossword puzzle format. Once you invest in a template for a Java script crossword puzzle (about a person-week), it can then readily be adapted to many situations for a fraction of that cost, providing excellent return on investment (ROI)* Another example is a Macromedia Director jigsaw puzzle that allows engineers to try different combinations of elements (a click indicates a correct configuration; a buzzer indicates an incorrect one; a one-line text blurb provides explanations).
• A variety of learning tools need to be used to accommodate a wide range of learning styles.
• Coached practice sessions. This combines techniques: tells, shows, lets. A talking parrot icon enlivened what might otherwise have been a rather dry tutorial. Slower users can get just the right amount of help without slowing faster users. The parrot is optional; some users love it, others hate it. Users have the option of using Help or not using it.
• HTML simulations of the procedures being demonstrated don't have to be ultra high fidelity.

*Throughout his pitch, Horton repeatedly quoted approximate times in hours or days that it took to develop the online tools he was demonstrating. This showed that despite his eloquence and his well-earned reputation for visual creativity, he is also a shrewd and sharp-penciled businessperson.

Summary

• Create the one-stop knowledge shop. This will be a key manner in which technical communicators can add value in the future.