Every page is page one baker

Every Page is Page One
Mark Baker
Analecta Communications Inc.

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 About me
 @mbakeranalecta
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 About Every Page is Page One
 #eppo
 About this session
 #stc13eppo
Bringing Tech Comm to the Web 2

Who said…
 “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 Nunrberg
Funnel
 1990
 Users hopping
around from one
source to another
did not start with
the Web

The sequencing problem
 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

Eliminate sequence
 A radical approach to sequencing problems is to try
to eliminate sequence: materials designed to be
read in any order cannot be read in the wrong
order. … The orderly accumulation of prerequisite
skill and understanding that can be assumed when
material is embedded in a sequenced curriculum
cannot be assumed if learners use the material in
any order they wish. But, of course, this is just
what learners do anyway and is one of the key
reasons that materials that depend on carefully
sequenced prerequisites fail.
John Carroll, The Nurnberg Funnel, 1990

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

Why “Every Page is Page One?”
 On the Web, readers arrive at content
 Via a Google 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

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.”

But …
 Not every page
works well as
page one

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

On the Web but Not of the Web
 Putting a PDF or a tri-pane help
system on you 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

Writers in denial
 Many writers are in denial about the
power of Web search.
 “too many false hits”
 “too much stuff to wade through”
 “takes too long to find things”
 “content is unreliable”
 “easier to find things in a book with a
well prepared index”

So why do users
prefer to search the Web?
Photo: Steven Straiton/Wikimedia Commons

Scope
 Searching the Web is not like
searching the index of one book
 It is like searching the index of every
book, letter, article, and conversation
in the world
 Index search only begins when you
have found the right book
 Finding the right book is expensive

The Long Tail
 Many low demand
items account for as
much total demand
as a few high
demand items.
 Amazon makes a lot
of money from the
long tail of items
regular stores can‟t
stock

The Long Tail

Manual is full of holes
 Manual has only high
demand items
 Users often need
specific items from
the low demand set
 They don‟t know
which items are low
demand
 The Web has it all

Information Foraging
Photo: Amanda Lea, Wikimedia Commons

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.”
Jakob Nielsen‟s Alertbox: June 30, 2003
Information Foraging:
Why Google Makes People Leave Your Site Faster

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.
Jakob Nielsen‟s Alertbox: June 30, 2003
Information Foraging:
Why Google Makes People Leave Your Site Faster

Experience vs. credentials
“Now the technology lets
you find experienced
people as easily as
credentialed ones.”
David Weinberger: To Big to Know

Collegiality
“Links are the visible manifestation of
the author giving up any claim to
completeness or even sufficiency; links
invite the reader to browse the network
in which the work is enmeshed, an
acknowledgement that thinking is
something that we do together.”

Include it all. Filter is afterward.
“We seem to be making a cultural
choice---with our new infrastructure's
thumb heavily on the scale---to prefer
to start with abundance rather than
curation. Include it all. Filter it
afterward. Even then, the filters do
not remove anything; they filter
forward, not out.”

Filter it afterward
 The Web is a filter
 We can filter it for ourselves
 Google
 And with our friends
 LinkedIn
 Facebook
 Twitter
 Etc.

Filter it socially

Authority is shifting
“If our social networks are our
new filters, then authority is
shifting from experts in
faraway offices to the network
of people we know, like, and
respect.”
Too Big to Know

Individual journey
 Readers make their individual journey
through a Web of information
 Our content is one resource they may
visit on that journey
 But wherever they enter our
content, it should act as page one

How I got here

Shared vehicles; unique trips
 Many different vehicles
 Each functions independently
 I chose the sequence to create a
unique journey
 The airplane design does not depend
on my arriving by taxi
 The subway works the same if I take
the stairs, not the escalator

No guided tour
 Readers are self directed
 We have always known most readers
don‟t take the guided tour
 They skip and scan and look stuff up
 Now they can self direct across the
entire Web
 To serve them, provide EPPO topics

The book model
 Books provide the guided tour as
primary means
 Linear book
 Support self-guided as secondary
means
 Scanable subheads
 Index

The EPPO model
 EPPO topics support self-guided as
primary means
 Every pages works as page one
 Works with search, social curation
 Works with external resources
 Can still provide a guided tour as a
secondary means
 Ordered topic collections
 Can include external resources

At the crossroads
 Try to reclaim the order and certainty
of the book world, or cooperate in the
linked ecology of the web with its
social approach to authority and its
fuzzy edges?

EXAMPLES

Recipe
 Black Forest
Ham and
Gruyère Frittata

Car review
 Subaru Forrester
2003-2008
review

Technical article
 Create REST
applications with
the Slim micro-
framework

Ornithology
 Blue-footed
Booby

Encyclopedia article
 Ottawa

Stack Overflow
 Python shelve
OutOfMemory
error

CHARACTERISTICS OF
EPPO TOPICS

Self Contained
 No linear dependencies
 Never assumes you have read X
 May assume you know X
 May require different types of
information “blocks”

Establish Context
 Reader may arrive from anywhere
 Search and links may be imprecise
 Allow the reader to get their bearings
quickly
 Navigable context
 If they are a little off, help them get
where they should be

Specific Limited Purpose
 Must have a clear idea of the purpose
it fulfills for the reader
 Purpose must be specific
 Can‟t be self contained or establish
context if purpose not specific
 Purpose must be limited
 One vehicle in a network the reader
navigates for themselves
 Do one thing; do it well

Stay on one level
 Books tend to change levels
 Topics support readers choosing their
own path
 Readers decide when they want big
picture or gritty detail
 Readers change levels by changing
topics
 Topics stay on one level

Conform to type
 Topics on a common subject tend to
have a similar pattern
 Recipes
 Encyclopedia articles on cities
 Car reviews
 Ornithology
 Product comparisons
 Technical articles 1 2 3 4

Assume reader is qualified
 Books designed as sole source for
diverse audience
 Write for the least qualified reader
 Often annoying for experienced reader
 Topics are one stop in reader‟s self-
directed journey
 If reader is not qualified, they can
choose other topics to get qualified

Narrative minim
 Narrative necessary to understanding
 Can be constructed at different
lengths
 Places facts into a business or life
context
 Supports decision making required for
action

Link Richly
 Books are designed for linear reading
 Links may be considered a distraction
 Allow reader to deviate from writer‟s
planned course
 Topics are for self directed readers
 Make context navigable
 Enable reader to qualify themselves
 Enable switching levels
 Enable onward journey

Topics and Topic Sets
 Need many topics to cover a large
subject area
 Create topic sets, not books
 Support random entry
 Establish type to ensure completeness
and conformance to purpose
 Support reader choice within your set
 Make them work on the Web

The Book
 Every Page is Page One:Topic-based Writing
for Technical Communication and the Web
 This fall from XML Press
 http://xmlpress.net/publications/eppo/
 Yes, I acknowledge the irony!
 There is still a place for books
 But that‟s another presentation
 Outline is online on my blog
 http://everypageispageone.com/2013/05/02/book-
outline-every-page-is-page-one/
 Comment for a chance to win a copy of the book

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

Every page is page one baker

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