Recap: STC Rochester Spectrum Conference 2021

The need to be flexible seemed to arise from products, systems, and other environments with many components that can be recombined in different ways by the end users to achieve both similar and different goals. In my mind, I connected flexibility with findability, that users have to be able to discover and piece together a solution from amongst the many (relevant and not so relevant) content pieces that we produce. It also seems to me that tech writers are increasingly asked to develop more Solution Architecture-related docs, helping busy, confused, and overwhelmed users navigate entire products, even cross-company.

One speaker, Matt Reiner, works at k15t which builds apps for the Confluence platform, and shared his “recipe” for creating an “information experience” (borrowing a term from Daniel Steven’s Write the Docs talk). Simplicity adds to flexibility, and at least semi-structured authoring (such as using genre conventions or content chunks even if you’re not in full-blown DITA) helps you remix content where you need it.

• Story: What are you trying to tell? What are you trying to get users to do?
• Assemble ingredients: What pieces of content do you need to tell the story?
• Make a starter: What is a quick, basic set of tasks or information that you can give users to do something now?
• Separate and spread: What are more advanced steps that they might need as they continue?
• Blend well: What’s the most effective combination of these ingredients, starters, and spreads?
• Serve: What’s the best way to display this content?

If you, dear reader, are picturing a smorgasbord of delightful delicacies and content morsels that is making you hungry, you are not alone.

Lou Prosperi began his talk on “Imagineering” by posing the question: Are we technical communicators, or are we technical communicators?

Let that sink in for a minute. What types of tools do you gravitate towards using? What value do your coworkers expect to get from you? What type of value do you want to bring?

He argues that technical communicators are well poised to “imagineer,” which comes from Walt Disney’s approach to telling stories. Imagineering is a portmanteau of imagination and engineering.

• Blends creative innovation with technical know-how
• Uses various tools, techniques, and disciplines to convey specific ideas and experiences to an audience
• Creates stories, not necessarily a three-part rising action, denouement, closing, but a core idea, or premise, that underlies each feature, attraction, land, ride, venue, and so forth.

He used the Magic Kingdom to highlight some of Disney’s most effective techniques for creating magical experiences.

• Wienie. A weinie is something to draw someone into an area. Disney used to lead his pet dog, Duchess, around by enticing her with a “wienie” hotdog, and guests need a similar incentive trail to draw them in, attract attention, and capture interest.
• Story. It all begins with a story, your subject matter. Your story becomes the basis for all the decisions moving forward.
• Progressive disclosure. From general impression to specific scenes and details. More details as you move closer. Concept/overview before specifics.
• Forced perspective. Alter perspective to get them to focus on what you want them to. In graphics, this might mean Simplified User Interfaces (SUIs).
• Creative intent. You can have fun, but it should have some sort of purpose, like how a makeover prepares you for a gala ball. Design goals to accomplish the experience.
• Attention to detail, even in places you don’t expect the audience to look.
• Pre-shows to introduce the audience to the story before it even begins.
• Readability, clear signs, repeated and expected
• Theming and staging that intensifies the experience and makes sense within the context of the story.
• Plussing, a term for making things better, improvement via iteration, constant improvement, how to make this better?