Think More, Write Less: Professionalism and a high-value approach to prioritizing, designing, developing, and delivering information

IBM Total Information Experience
Think More, Write <Architect, Design, DO!>
Less:
Professionalism and a high-value approach to prioritizing,
designing, developing, and delivering information
Andrea L. Ames
IBM STSM and Information Experience Strategist/Architect/Designer
UCSC in Silicon Valley Certificate Coordinator and Master Instructor
STC Fellow and Past President (2004-05)
ACM Distinguished Engineer
16 May 2013
© IBM Corporation 2013. All Rights Reserved

About Andrea
Technical communicator since 1983
Areas of expertise
Information experience design: Content strategy,
information architecture, and interaction design
for content display and delivery, within products
and interactive information delivery systems
Architecture, design, and development of embedded assistance (content within
or near the product user interface)
Information and product usability, from analysis through validation
User-centered process for information development and
information experience design
IBM Senior Technical Staff Member on corporate Total Information
Experience team in IBM CIO’s office
University of CA Extension certificate coordinator and instructor
STC Fellow, past president (2004-05), former member of
Board of Directors (1998-2006), and Intercom columnist (with Alyson
Riley) of The Strategic IA
ACM Distinguished Engineer
2

Beginner’s mind
It’s not just for Zen, anymore 
Everyone close your eyes
Now breathe…take 3 deep breaths
and relax
During this hour, we’ll talk about
why we should return to our
beginner’s mind to
Become more professional
Deliver a better and
higher-value experience
for our clients

Agenda
A quick historical retrospective of our industry
What does “think more, write less” really mean?
Why do we need to do this and change the way we’ve
always done things?
How can we think more and write less?
But…but…but… <your objections here >
Where do we go from here?

Our industry…not exactly a shining example of the right
way to do things
Emphasis on products and selling, not users (buyer is not always user)
Development processes often chaotic or non-existent, not user-centered
Information development processes are typically not integrated,
at the mercy of development processes
Perceptions of “technical writers” are wildly variable
Documentation is often compensation for unusable products, a finger in an
eroding dam of bad design
Technical communicators are losing the battle,
because traditional deliverables,
developed by traditional means,
are not working
Reference that “papers
the product”
Generalized user guide info
“Type your name in the name
field” help
Based on development specs, without user input

Think more, write <do> less…what does it really mean?
Think more means…
Not making our users think
Not letting the developers think for you
Not falling back on old paradigms
One help topic per UI panel…
How many online library topics are we going to write?
Owning and being responsible for the information experience
Write less means…
Prioritizing what you cover and where
Not just “papering the product” with obvious reference documentation
Starting from the user and working your way out to information—make
“looking for” the answer a last resort (because it is)
Not forcing users to read—support skimming
Defining what success is or means for your team

Why do we need to change?
Papering the product is an old paradigm that
is proven to not work – customers are not happy
More and more customer-facing folks are
validating that customers are looking to forums
and other community sources of info, not doc
There’s lots of focus across the industry on the
total information experience and content strategy
(due to falling customer sat)
Business environment is constantly changing
Execs are constantly re-evaluating what is valuable
In business, if you’re stagnant, you die
We don’t want to be stagnant, and we want to be seen as valuable to
the business…so that they’ll keep paying us!

How can we think more and write less?
Prioritize using scenarios
Sometimes this means not writing something
Most often, it means covering it in an unfamiliar
way (to the team, clients, and even you)
Own the information
Don’t do whatever the line items, development, specs,
etc., “tell” you to do
Do what you know, as a professional, to be right for your users
Phase work to define your version of success
Work with your team leadership and management to identify
crawl, walk, and run phases
Get input from other teams for ideas about how this might look

How can we think more and write less? (cont.)
Take user input into consideration, but don’t just do whatever
they say
Understand the root cause of their concerns
Design the right solution for the issue at hand and validate it
Typically, users don’t know what the root cause is; they only
know how to articulate what they like and don’t like
If it seems complicated or difficult to you, it probably is
Raise the issue with the team, contribute ideas for improving the product
design
If you can’t get changes, or get them right
away, find ways to improve the user
experience without adding “topics”…multimedia
demo or tutorial, embedded information
Ask questions about what you don’t know
(probably the same as user’s questions)
Look for gaps between UI panels, between
tasks, between different UIs (admin versus
end user client, e.g.), between products

How can we think more and write less? (cont.)
Apply progressive information disclosure
Ensure the product is as easy to explain as possible, first
Start with the user and provide the right
information in the task (embedded assistance)
Don’t rewrite what’s in the UI in hover help
and help panels
Don’t include unnecessary hovers and help panels
Document the UI in the UI
Document the domain, cross-UI-pane tasks,
cross-product tasks and processes, etc., outside the UI
Determine what’s highest-value for your users—examples, samples, tasks,
tutorials—and focus on those
Don’t try to cover every part of the product with every kind of information
and deliverable
Focus on tasks, then on supporting reference info
Focus concepts on domain vs. tool
Design deliverables to support skimming from user tasktool and from UI
taskdomain information
There is no cookbook/recipe for implementing this;
priorities are situational and you must think!

But…What about development? They expect…<all kinds of
things, here >
Their expectations of what we provide comes entirely
from us
We must take responsibility for changing those
expectations
Are expectations based on history? or necessity?
We can show them a different way—a validated, better
way

But… How can I prioritize around scenarios and not around
functions when my dev team doesn’t have scenarios?
Ask your dev team for scenarios
Offer to draft scenarios for the team
Collaborate with your UX team (if you have one) to create
your own, reasonable scenarios
If you must prioritize around functions, work with your
tech comm and extended team to carefully consider how
to cover and deliver
the information

But…How can I not write something?
The goal is not to leave
areas uncovered
Instead think about the best way
to cover them and perhaps only
cover them in one way vs. multiple
If priorities truly point to leaving areas uncovered, work
with your tech comm team to build the appropriate
business case
Leverage tech comm leadership or management (if it’s
not you) to ensure appropriate follow-through with
development, execs, etc.

But…How do we implement something really new? Even if
it’s the right thing?
What about translation? Infrastructure? Established process?
Work closely with your tech comm team to ensure this is
done in a way that it can best be leveraged, will have
appropriate focus and resources
Teams are great incubators for new
information-delivery innovations
Think about participating in your
organization’s strategy development to
provide input into focus for innovation

What are your concerns?
Your concern here 

Questions?

Contacting/following/connecting with Andrea
E-mail: aames@pobox.com
Twitter: @TMWLala, @aames
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/andreaames
Blog: http://thinkmorewriteless.wordpress.com/
17

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