Presenters: Mark Baker, Principal Consultant, Analecta Communications and Joe Gelb, President, Suite Solutions Abstract: The Internet has changed how your customers view and use content. If your content is not easy to find and immediately helpful, readers will move on almost at once. Every page must be Page One when it comes to delivering the right content at the right time. For technical communicators, this environment presents a unique challenge: How do you cover a large and complex product using only topics, and how do you enable your readers to find and navigate topic-based content effectively? Mark Baker, Principal Consultant for Analecta Communications, will introduce his approach to planning, creating, managing, and organizing topic-based documentation that your customer can use: “Every Page is Page One.” Joe Gelb, President of Suite Solutions, will then illustrate how this approach can be implemented using SuiteShare, a social knowledge base for optimized content delivery.

1. Every Page is Page One with SuiteShare
Joe Gelb, Suite Solutions
Mark Baker, Analecta Communications Inc.
March 18, 2014

2. Introducing Suite Solutions
Joe Gelb
• Founder and President of Suite Solutions
Suite Solutions
Our Vision: Enable you to engage your customers by providing quick access to
relevant information
• Help companies get it right the first time
• XML-based Authoring/Publishing Solutions
• Enterprise Intelligent Dynamic Content: SuiteShare Social KB
• Consulting, System Integration
• Cross-Industry Expertise
• High Tech, Aerospace & Defense, Discrete Manufacturing
• Healthcare, Government
• Blue Chip Customer Base

3. Analecta Communications Inc.
 Content Creation
 Every Page is Page One information design
 Content Engineering
 Bottom-up information architecture
 Content system development and scripting
 Content Strategy
 Content strategy for tech comm
 Bottom-up content creation and governance
strategies
Content Creation, Content Engineering,
Content Strategy
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4. The book
 Every Page is Page
One: Topic-based
Writing for
Technical
Communication
and the Web
 XML Press
 http://xmlpress.net/p
ublications/eppo
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Engineering, Content Strategy
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5. Readers skip around
 “Learners … often skip over crucial
material if it does not address their
current task-oriented concern or skip
around among several manuals,
composing their own ersatz
instructional procedure on the fly.”
John Carroll, The Nurnberg Funnel, 1990
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Engineering, Content Strategy
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6. Goal directed reading
 “Many sequencing problems reside
not in the material alone but in the
learner’s use of it. When people refer
to instruction opportunistically in
support of their own goal-directed
activities, it becomes difficult or
impossible to predict what sequencing
will be appropriate…”
John Carroll, The Nurnberg Funnel, 1990
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Engineering, Content Strategy
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7. Radical Then; Mainstream Now
 The concept of creating unsequenced
material was “radical” in 1990
 Today, it is the default
 The Web is not sequenced
 Every Page is Page One
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Engineering, Content Strategy
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8. Why “Every Page is Page One?”
 Readers arrive at content
 Via a search
 Via a recommendation in a social
network
 Via a link from another page
 There is no continuity from where
they were before.
 Every link leads to a new page one
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Engineering, Content Strategy
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9. Even when not on the Web
 People search the Web
 When watching TV or movies
 When reading books
 When reading billboards
 When reading menus
 There is nothing holding the reader to
your content anymore
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10. John Carroll anticipated this
 “Escaping these problems and
providing for material to be sensibly
read in any order, necessitates a
different approach to organizing
instruction. It requires a high degree
of modularity, a structure of small
self-contained units.”
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11. But …
 Not every page
works well as
page one
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Engineering, Content Strategy
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12. Jump into the middle
 The page is in
the middle of
something
 Reader has to
back up to find
start of the
thread
 It may be a
“topic,” but it
assumes
sequence
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13. On the Web but Not of the Web
 Putting a PDF or a tri-pane help
system on your Website does not
create Web-like content.
 Native Web content does not look like
this.
 Native Web content is not sequential
 Readers don’t stick to one site. They
hop around the whole Web
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14. Information Foraging
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Photo: Amanda Lea, Wikimedia Commons

15. Information foraging
 “Information foraging predicts that the
easier it is to find good patches, the
quicker users will leave a patch. Thus,
the better search engines get at
highlighting quality sites, the less time
users will spend on any one site.”
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Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox: June 30, 2003
Information Foraging:
Why Google Makes People Leave Your Site Faster

16. Information snacking
 The growth of always-on broadband
connections also encourages this trend toward
shorter visits. With dial-up, connecting to the
Internet is somewhat difficult, and users
mainly do it in big time chunks. In contrast,
always-on connections encourage information
snacking , where users go online briefly,
looking for quick answers.
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Engineering, Content Strategy
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Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox: June 30, 2003
Information Foraging:
Why Google Makes People Leave Your Site Faster

17. Information scent
 The key concept in information
foraging is information scent
 Does content smell of the information
I need?
 Content that does not smell right is
not read
 Readers will quickly depart following
a new information scent
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Engineering, Content Strategy
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18. Information architecture
 Traditional architecture organized top
down
 Information scent is in the
organization, not in the content
 Individual pages often have poor
information scent
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19. Tree of Knowledge
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20. Rise of Frankenbooks
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21. Limits of Top Down
Organization
 Scope
 Scale
 Variety
 Complexity
 Unevenness
 “Everything is Miscellaneous”
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22. Where top-down works
 When readers want a curriculum
 Intuitive classifications
 Natural hierarchies
 Canonical hierarchies (for those who
know them)
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23. Where top-down fails
 When readers are goal-directed
 Unfamiliar classifications
 Unnatural hierarchies
 Irregular relationships
 Just too much stuff

24. Goal-directed readers follow
information scent
 Readers make their individual goal-
driven journey through a Web of
information
 Our content is one resource they may
visit on that journey
 They enter our content at the bottom
 If they stay in our content, they
navigate it bottom-up
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25. The architecture in the content
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26. Each Page is Hub of Local
Subject Space
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27. Not just about links
 Bottom-up architecture is not just
about links
 The nodes of a network have to work
reliably for the network to be reliable
 The nodes have to be correctly
connected for the network to be
reliable
 Need to be Every Page is Page One
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28. Characteristics of EPPO topics
 Self-contained
 Specific and limited purpose
 Establish context
 Conform to type
 Assume the reader is qualified
 Stay on one level
 Link richly along lines of subject
affinity
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29. Contextual Relevance
What they need, when they need it.
Provide quick access to information that enables our readers to achieve their
immediate goal
Targeting your audience
• Who is the reader? Profile, persona
• End-users
• Partners
• Service technicians
• Technical support staff
• Marketing and sales people
• Prospective customers
• Security profile
• Proficiency level
• Geographical location
Service Engineers
Customers
Partners
Sales
Tech Support

30. Contextual Relevance
What they need, when they need it.
Goals and Use Case Scenarios
• What are they trying to accomplish?
• Get trained
• Install, Configure, Commission
• Use, Administer
• Maintain, Adjust, Troubleshoot
• Upgrade
• Make a purchasing decision
• What equipment are they operating?
• Version? Configuration? Protocol? Interface?
• What device are they viewing the information on?
• Will they have network access?
• Are there safety considerations?

31. Illustration: Field Service
I’m a service engineer
I need to:
• Install a new 8300S Flow Meter via Profibus protocol
• Connect to the Device Manager
using a hand-held Field Communicator
• The plant has no internet access.
Let me:
• Pull together updated information
• Download to my tablet before I go onsite.
While onsite, I figured out how to solve a tricky problem.
I took some pictures with my smart phone and a short video to illustrate the
problem and solution. When I get online, let me:
• Write up a how-to article
• Upload the video so my colleagues can learn from my experience.

32. Approaches to categorizing content
Metadata
• audience
• category
• keywords
• product info
• versions
• product name, brand, component, feature, platform, series
Taxonomy and classification
• Build knowledge model of your domain
• Apply it to your content

33. Taxonomy and Classification
Taxonomy (subject scheme)
• Defines sets of controlled values for classifying content
(subjects or facets)
• Organized in hierarchies
• Defines relationships between subjects
• Can be modular, so business units can develop, maintain and utilize parts of
the taxonomy that are relevant to them
• Evolves to adapt to new situations and contexts
Classification
• Categorizes the content using the subjects defined in the taxonomy
• Classification is maintained separately from the content
• SMEs and content developers can classify the content
• Does not require you to “own” or change the content

34. Automated Classification
Ingenia

35. Taxonomy in bottom-up
architecture
 Taxonomy is not just for top-down
classification
 Taxonomy terms and classes occur
throughout content
 Locate topic at the intersection of
multiple categories
 Bottom-up linking architecture is
based on taxonomy terms and
categories occurring in the text
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36. Taking the Leap to a New Paradigm
Dynamic Enterprise Content
• Variety of content: documentation, videos, how-to articles, safety
information, data sheets, marketing material
• Context filtering: quick, goal-oriented access to contextually relevant content
• Personalized docs: allow readers to assemble content on demand and
render to PDF for print and ePub for offline mobile access
• Audience Participation: allow your audience to add new content, comment
on existing content, express approval, and easily share knowledge with
others
• Modern User Experience: smooth transition between mobile and desktop
• Activity often starts on mobile,
moves to desktop, returns to mobile
• Internet connection not always available

37. Let’s see it in action…
Demonstration using SuiteShare Dynamic Publishing

38. Hmmm, this looks interesting…
For additional information, contact:
Joe Gelb
solutions@suite-sol.com
U.S. Office EMEA Office
(609) 360-0650 +972-2-993-8054
www.suite-sol.com

39. Questions?
 Contact information
 Mark Baker
 Analecta Communications Inc.
 mbaker@analecta.com
 Twitter: @mbakeranalecta
 Company: http://analecta.com
 Phone: 1 613 422 9400
 Blog: http://everypageispageone.com
 Book: http://xmlpress.net/publications/eppo/
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