By JoAnn Hackos | Fellow
When I started to write, I was nine years old and a third-grade reporter for our grammar school newspaper. By the time I reached eighth grade, I was the newspaper editor and learned typesetting and layout. Reading strips of typesetting and using hot wax were an early part of my education. Later, I was editor of my high school paper and responsible for the photography and layout of the yearbook. When I began teaching English at the University of Texas, I helped students produce a literary magazine.
We've come a long way with technology, but I've never regretted the hands-on education in what makes text readable and usable. Despite the technological changes we have experienced during the past 30-plus years, the real work of information development has actually changed very little. We still must understand how our users work and think and how information can enhance their job performance and make them more productive and successful.
As a young Comtech in 1980, my very first computer-documentation project involved developing user manuals for a hospital information system. Since I had never developed a user manual before and had absolutely no idea what a hospital information system was, I told the company's CEO that I needed to spend time understanding the users and their working environment. This sounded like a good idea to him.
Together with the head trainer, I spent about three months visiting the hospitals and sitting with the people who registered patients, handled billing, and kept records. We became very knowledgeable about how the work was done and who did what. None of the people had ever worked on computers before. What we produced as a result of firsthand experience with customers in their environment was a set of standalone topics that could be assembled into a variety of deliverables. The topics were in print, of course, and they could be copied into booklets as required for the attendees of each new training class. We provided an introduction on basic computer use for novices. To make the assembly easier, we supplied each training department with a plastic binder machine. They assembled with topics, added the introduction, developed a title page, and voilá—custom manuals.
My point is that we began from the start putting customer knowledge at the top of the requirements list. Without knowing the customer and the customer's work environment, we could not produce usable and useful information.
As you can see, the basic concepts of information development have changed very little while the technology has marched on. Today, we can produce much better documents more easily and less expensively than we could at any time in the past. But the quality of the information is still dependent on our understanding of our customers and how they learn. Without that, we will simply continue to make the product specifications look nice.
It's interesting to me to look at the challenges that technical communicators face today. Many organizations are moving to XML and implementing the OASIS DITA standard. That means moving away from WYSIWYG tools and information laid out in books to developing standalone topics that follow structured authoring rules.
Nonetheless, many technical communicators find these changes more than they can handle. And many experienced writers, who ought to appreciate standards and be able to develop topics that might be used in more than one context, are resistant to change. It's a dangerous resistance.
As we study our users today, we find that they are as taxed as all of us with too much to do and too little time. They want answers to their questions delivered in capsules that are easy to digest. They appreciate links to related information if they have the time to pursue them.
Yet, throughout the field, we find writers who resist. They want to maintain structures that are more suitable for textbooks than for the way people learn today.
I do hope that we can break down the resistance and move information development to a respected place in our organizations. We look for ways to respond when we learn that users are unhappy with the information they receive. We must lead the move to new information solutions, not drag behind.
I am encouraged by the work of those communicators who are devoted to innovation, responsive to user needs, and happy to take risks. In my view, these are the people who are the future of the field.
