STC mobile device content consideration

Resizing Content for the Small Screen: Considerations for Single-
Source Authoring for Tablet and Mobile Delivery
Maxwell Hoffmann | Product Evangelist | mhoffman@adobe.com |
@maxwellhoffmann

© 2012 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved. Adobe Confidential.

About Adobe

 Founded in December 1982  74 Offices in 43 Countries
 $4.2 billion in revenue in FY2011  Corporate Headquarters in
San Jose, California
 More than 10,000 employees
 Adobe donates a minimum of 1%
of net income to philanthropy

We simplify complicated, inefficient and expensive workflows
We enable more engaging, compelling content
We drive greater return from digital media and marketing investments

© 2012 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved. 2

About Maxwell Hoffmann

 Maxwell Hoffmann
 Product Evangelist, Tech Comm Suite
 Started with early forms of proprietary single-source
publishing, grew with the industry
 Product Manager for Frame Technology
 15 years in translation industry, working on
“whatever documents come through the door”
 Extensive sales and customer training experience
 Trained over 1,200 people in hands-on, scalable publishing
solutions
 Over a dozen years in the Field doing consulting & production

© 2012 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved. Adobe Confidential. 3

Presentation in a nut shell

 Concepts, not specifics, not a
SW demo
 Observations about several
trends that need to die
 Why we do things the way we
do
 Guidelines for content that fits a
screen you can hold in your
hand
 Some exercises we can use to
“break” the habit of bloated
content creation
 Modified expectations about
single-source publishing


(sigh) -- The inevitable history/timeline slide ….


Writer have wanted their “finger prints” in content for a long time

Human hand prints
from Spanish cave
recently tested to be
over 40,000 years old


How do we get from “there” to “here”?


What I Learned from over 25 years in publishing and training

 Publishers (me too) are often hypnotized by new
technologies or new delivery platforms
 Excessive focus on tools and trends sometimes makes us
forget “should this legacy data be republished?”
 Legacy files are rarely “cleansed/optimized” before
conversion to new delivery
 Some writers still want their fingerprints on their chapters
Want to “enrich” content with their personality
(“unpublished” novelist syndrome)
 “Less is More” has yet to catch on with content
 Many gifted writers have instinctive resistance to
“guided” content creation (e.g. structured authoring,
topic-based authoring or simplified English)


How the landscape has changed for Content Creators

 Readers:
 have less time and shorter attention spans
 expect the latest, up-to-date version of any
content ASAP
 Writers/Artists:
 Fewer of us (smaller work groups)
 Less times, shorter delivery schedules
(magnified by target languages with localization/translation)
 Workload (amount of data) often 2-3x that of 10 years ago
 Increased pressure to serve Global Audience
 Graphic Artist used to be a fulltime, corporate position; in some locales those
skills have withered
 21st Century “tech writers” struggling to gain status, recognition and influence
over budget


Many of us have “fat” legacy content and less space for it


In technical content, we still write more than people can read


Customers have less time to consume data


How did we a “page-based” lens for content?

 Page size or laptop/computer screen has usually been the
“lens” through which we visualize delivered content
 Most of us write enough words to fill up the space we are
working in (e.g. “write to the bottom of the page”)
 Technical content: many of us are still prone to
unnecessarily bracket “critical info” in
nested lists or tables
 Many of us fall into “arms-length” syndrome:
content looks good on computer screen
 Try to read Sponsor/Logo on lamp-post
banners


Why do we write more content than people can read?

 We‟re subject matter experts; we know a lot, we have a lot
to say
 Most of us are used to describing steps rather
than dynamic, visual presentation
 Sometimes we are revising earlier versions of
“documentation” with content
that is 5 – 15 years old
 We have few examples or models
to work from for “reduced”
content versions
 Human Nature: some of us just
don‟t embrace change


CHALLENGE: repackaging message/content in smaller containers


Historic precedents: old content on new platforms

 Early television content turned to the past: Vaudeville and Radio Shows

… it worked for 3 to 5 years



 Theatrical films on TV: the world before letter box

“fat” content on a “skinny” screen



 Newspapers and websites: it took them over 10 years to “get it” …

2012 LA Times on web

1996 LA Times


The LA Times “got it” … multiple platform delivery


What are our biggest challenges for the “new” small screen?


Tech Doc thrives on indents, lists, tables, boxed cautions for
emphasis


This aspect ration presents challenges for technical material


Traditional, “fat” bullet or numbered lists are a problem

1. You have 8 to 20 screens
2. Thumbs will wear out
navigating through this
many points
3. Reader retention is
diminished
4. Follow some guidelines
from PowerPoint regarding
max number of points and
reader retention


From “Death by PowerPoint”


Some options to consider

1. Use conditional text or filter
by attributes (DITA) to
reduce content if single-
sourcing
2. In some cases, alternative
sections for an executive
summary
3. Does this lengthy tech doc
manual really need to go to
mobile devices?


EXERCISES to get a new mind-set


HOW can you write content short enough for small screen?

 Use WYSIWYG editing display to see how much
content you have for iPhone screen as you write
it
 User alternate CSS style
sheets with XML or
XHTML content
 Use alternate templates
that simulate screen
and font/point size ratio
with unstructured content
 Actually author in this
mode; don‟t preview

HOW can you retune your authoring skills for a small screen?

DISCLAIMER: this slide assumes that you are creating “typical” tech doc (e.g. medical
devices, complex manuals)

 A practice exercise: use “mailing labels” template in Word, or
make “tiny page” template in FrameMaker. Do your normal
writing style and see how many “screens” you fill
 Scotch tape 3x5 cards to sheet of paper; fill them in on a
typewriter (yes, a typewriter) … this is an exercise, you’re only
going to do this once
 Don‟t worry about typos
 This makes you physically aware of approximate
words or characters per screen
 Working with physical media (construction paper
and scissors) permanently plants a “gauge” of
content in your mind

HOW can you write shorter sentences for a small screen?

 Changing writing style to shorter word count:
 (No, I‟m not kidding) – use dictation; record your text
with digital recorder or Siri (even cassette tapes)
 Don‟t worry about quality; you can edit later
 Whatever you can say w/o taking a breath is a good
gauge for memory retention on small screen


HOW else can retrain your mind to compose shorter sentences?

 Read Dorothy Parker short stories
 Although Parker wrote fiction, she was a master at
using minimum number of words to convey
profound thoughts and emotions
 Find podcasts of Martha Stewart’s 90 seconds
of “what you need to know”
 Stewart (or her writers) was a genius at
capturing all essential ingredients for a message
in a radio or podcast about the length of
an “elevator pitch”

… and if you really
want to go retro …

Find some Reader‟s Digest Reference books from „60s and „70s

Disclaimer: author not a fan of R.D.’s politics
 The content of one of these books doesn‟t
matter
 Just read part of it for the sense of
sentence length, and “getting to the point”
in topic sentence
 Clever use of “key” graphics made good
visual references
 You‟re not going to copy anything that you
see (style, layout, etc.) … but the staff at
R.D. were highly gifted at digesting critical
information down to its essentials
 Note: content went downhill about 12-15
years ago (IMHO)


Simplified Technical English (STE) – an example

ASD-STE100

(www.smartny.com)


Controlled English - Instrumentation

Quaternary Pump Quaternary Pump
When turned on, the
quaternary pump runs When the Quaternary Pump
through the initialization starts operation, the plunger
procedure to determine the moves inside the chamber.
upper dead center of the Simplified This movement lets the
first plunger. The first computer calculate and store
plunger moves slowly a position called “Top Dead
upwards into the Center” (TDC).
mechanical stop of chamber
and from there it moves (27 words)
back a predetermined path (www.smartny.com)

length. (44 words) English reduces text size by 30%
Controlled

Some software tools to reduce vocabulary and sentence length

 English language has >900K potential words
 Simplified English (or STE, CE) uses from 1,000 to 2,400
 There are may companion
products to FrameMaker
and Word that can “guide”
word choice
 Example: Maxit Checker by
Smart Software
(www.smartny.com)
 AuthorAssist by SDL.com
 Tools by Acrolynx.com

(graphic = www.smartny.com)


One movie is worth a thousand screen shots

DISCLAIMER: this slide, again, assumes that you are creating typical,
lengthy tech doc with lots of screen captures (e.g. software manuals)

 Make discreet use of rich media; 3D graphics, video clips or
dynamic screen captures (sized for small screen)
 This allows the reader to pause on one screen (or PDF page) and “get it”


HOW can you think in “chunks” for the small screen?

Work with a physical story board (try
this with physical media first)
 Make a storyboard on manila file folder
with post-it stickers
 Put topics or concepts on post-it stickers
 Forces your mind to think in pictures; this
translates better to shorter content
 This is an exercise, not a way of life … don‟t
freak out. I tried it and this works


HOW can you think in “visual units” appropriate for the small screen

Turn to Graphic Novels for
inspiration
 Good comic books or
graphic novels make good
use of “close up” and long
shots
 Wordless images are used
for emphasis
 Graphic novel illustration
panels are similar to the
real estate of small hand-
held devices.

http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/canadian-lit-prize-snubs-graphic-novels-graphic-artist_b8096


One more way you can hone your visual communication skills

 Watch and analyze a “good” silent movie
 The Artist
 The Big Parade (1925)
 The Last Laugh (no title cards)
 Wings (1928)


Lessons from the translation industry

 In some cases, “copy writing” (or rewrite for summary/mobile version)
may be appropriate
 Not all technical content will be suited for 100% single source publishing
to full “page” output and vastly reduced “hand held” screen output
 Think of portable devices as a “locale”:
 You have an exotic population that has less time to absorb a message
 Your target “locale” has a shorter attention span; important points must come
first
 Your target “locale” only has a thumb to navigate
…. Content must appear in visual „chunks‟
 In many cases, the reader is “standing in line”
… physical comfort as well as findability are
major issues


My product “wish list” …

 We need an authoring solution that shows how much text you have
created in different screen sizes while you are writing
 Complete separation for format from content may not always work for this
scenario
 DITA modules can be ideal, but visual feedback on “frame fill” is needed
 Authoring solution needs to be accessible to mere mortals. Not all SMEs
are going to be experts at document structure or working in a “tagged”
view
 Author plug-ins that not only “guide” simplified English but set off a
“buzzer” when you‟ve hit 1.5 screens with one paragraphs
 An ability to pre-visualize final output to ePubs and mobile devices before
you‟ve completed mountains of text


One solution: Adobe Technical Communication Suite 3.5

=


Brief DEMO of various single-source output
options with Tech Comm Suite


Question And Answer Time


Contact Information

Information
Maxwell Hoffmann Twitter twitter.com/maxwellhoffmann
Adobe Systems, Inc. Email mhoffman@adobe.com
Product Evangelist Web www.adobe.com
LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/maxwellhoffmann
Blog blogs.adobe.com/mbhoffmann
Blog blogs.adobe.com/techcomm
Facebook facebook.com/adobe.tcs

Slides available upon request


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