The document discusses the involvement of technical communication (tech comm) in mobile publishing, addressing the need to convert conventional help systems into mobile-friendly formats. It outlines the distinctions between ebooks, apps, and various authoring tools suitable for mobile content creation, while highlighting design challenges like screen orientation, content density, and platform compatibility. The author emphasizes the importance of planning for mobile integration from the outset of a project to effectively adapt content for multichannel publishing.

1. Design Challenges In HAT-Based
Multichannel Publishing

2. Who Am I?
Neil Perlin - Hyper/Word Services.
– Internationally recognized content creation and
delivery consultant.
– Help clients create effective, efficient, flexible
content in anything from print to mobile.
– Working with mobile since Windows CE and
WML/WAP c. 1998
– Certified – Viziapps, Flare, Mimic, RoboHelp.

3. The Issues
Should tech comm get involved in mobile?
– If we don’t, someone else will.
…how?
– By converting HAT-based help to mobile.
– By getting into “real” mobile.
What to expect when we single source our
content to “mobile”?
– The focus of this presentation…

4. First, Some
Mobile Basics

5. A Note About Terminology
Terminology affects your choice of hard-
ware and software.
Terminology mixups…
– Like not being clear re WebHelp vs. Web Help
or HTML help vs. HTML Help.
… can spell trouble.
– Like buying the wrong tool or hiring the wrong
developer.

6. Terminology – eBooks
Electronic books a
la Kindle, Nook.
– Largely linear format
and design.
– Generally sit on the
reader device.
– Good for stable,
linear material.
– Largely the focus of tech comm now, in my
experience.

7. Terminology – Apps
Applications for mobile devices.
– Highly focused – “micro-tasking” – compared
to PC-style applications.
– Native – Follow a platform standard, easily run
on-device resources.
– Web – (“Mobile web”) Run in browser on any
device, can’t easily run on-device resources,
may be mobile-optimized – e.g. WebHelp vs.
WebHelp Mobile.
– Hybrid – Combine native and web, HTML5.

8. Apps and Tech Comm
Little app dev from tech comm so far, in
my experience, for several reasons.
– “Mobile” is still new in the tech comm world
and companies aren’t sure of the need yet.
» And we don’t think of tech comm as creating apps.
– Going mobile required programming tools and
skills until HATs added mobile output.
Yet apps can be function- or content-
centric.

9. Function-Centric Apps
Differ from “normal” tech
comm…
Sometimes weirdly so…

10. Content-Centric Apps
But this is tech comm.
We can create these.

11. What About Authoring Tools?
Depends what “mobile” you want:
– eBooks – ePub, using RoboHelp 8+, Flare 8+.
– Web apps (general) – Any HAT that outputs
browser-based help like WebHelp or HTML5.
– Web apps (mobile-optimized) – Flare 6+, “mo-
bilizers” like Duda or Mobify, ViziApps.
– Native apps – RoboHelp 10+, GUI app dev
tools like ViziApps, iBuildApp, appmakr, etc.
– Hybrid apps – GUI app dev tools, HATs
eventually via HTML5.

12. Why Author Using a HAT?
Why?
– If you know the tool, you only have to learn a
few new features.
– Keep you out of the code.
– Set technical boundaries for you.
Why not?
– HAT won’t offer the features you expect in a
function-centric app.
– Possible code bloat.

13. Help vs. Mobile –
Screen and Content
Design Challenges
and Suggestions

14. Screen Design – Orientation
Landscape in help, portrait
(typically) in apps.

15. Orientation (cont’d)
Consider the effect of
screen rotation on an
app in a portrait mode
screen, like this one:
Can you force screen
rotation to off?

16. Control Position
Usually at top and left in help…

17. Control Position
But at the bottom in apps – less tap risk…

18. An Emerging HAT Approach
“Responsive-design” – device-agnosticism.
New releases of HATs support this.
For example,
from
RoboHelp 11.

19. Content Design – Text-Heaviness
Help usually text-heavy, apps not.

20. Text-Heaviness
Though there are exceptions, sort of…

21. Text-Heaviness Suggestion
Cut down text – not fat but real text – to
the bare bones.
A less extreme version of this, perhaps…

22. More Content Design Issues
Images may be too wide for phone screens.
– Can size them dynamically to fit by setting the
width to % and height to auto (if available).
– But are they still legible?
– If not, can you conditionalize them out?
– If you do, does that affect the contents?
– May call for greater granularity of content…
– And need a CMS to deal with the greater # of
content chunks even if traditional help did not.

23. More…
Ditto wide or “complex” tables.
Consider SWFs.
– Won’t run on iOS – must be MP4 or HTML5.
– Are text captions legible or must you replace
them with audio, which means creating 2+
versions of each movie.
– What happens to interactivity in a mouseless
world?

24. Still More…
Consider platform differences for feature
support and need to rework material.
– Minimal table support in ebook formats.
– Lack of support for Word bullets in KDP even
though Createspace supports them.
– Many more, no doubt…
“Invisible” problems like tables, graphics,
SWFs, popups, etc., embedded in snippets.
Popup links that convert to jumps.

25. And Still More…
Features with no equivalent controls in
mobile, like Flare togglers.
Graphics management may have to change
as graphics get stored in the cloud, perhaps
using Amazon S3.

26. An Interesting Side Note
You can mobile-optimize a regular site via
tools like Mobify (www.mobify.com) or
Duda (http://www.dudamobile.com/)
Creates a web app.
For example…

27. Web Apps – Creation
Here’s my regular site from Jan. 2013.

28. Web Apps – Creation
Same web site on an
iPhone 5…
– Works fine via scrolling,
pinch and zoom
– But hard to use.

29. Web Apps – Creation
Same site partly mobile-
optimized via DudaMobile.
– Aesthetics need work but now
a much better mobile site.
– Still a web site – e.g. a web
app.
– NOT a native app.
– $9/month for hosting.
– But…

30. Web Apps – Creation
The web and mobile versions don’t match.
I created the mobile version by hand.
Because the original site was never meant
to be mobilized; the result showed it.
Lesson – expect to redesign your content
before you can multichannel publish it
effectively.

31. A Design Tool
Here’s what you have to
work with.
Where does your thumb go?
What can you reach? What
do you obscure?
– If you’re a righty?
– A lefty?

32. Design Conclusions
Help converted to mobile won’t look like
Fruit Ninja.
If you’re single sourcing a help project to
mobile, plan for mobile before starting the
project.
– Consider user expectations when you tell them
you’re creating an app for them.
More involved here than just outputting a
help project to “mobile”.

33. Summary
Lots of new technical, design, and output
options to balance.
– Define your terms, platforms and differences.
It sounds daunting, but so did the move by
tech comm to online help and the web in
the ‘90s and still today.
We met those challenges – time to do so
again.

34. Hyper/Word Services Offers…
Training • Consulting • Development
Flare • Flare CSS • Flare Single Sourcing
RoboHelp • RoboHelp CSS • RoboHelp
HTML5
ViziApps
Single sourcing • Structured authoring

35. Thank you... Questions?
978-657-5464
nperlin@nperlin.cnc.net
www.hyperword.com
Twitter: NeilEric