David Farbey's Marginal Notes

On Awards and Algorithms

Posted on 15 January 2012 by David Farbey

I am very proud to be listed as No. 8 on MindTouch’s list of Tech Comm Influencers for 2011. Nevertheless, and despite that fact that I don’t have a good success record at questioning awards I receive (or don’t receive), I do have a few questions for MindTouch about their list. I suppose that’s just because I’ve always been part of the awkward squad. Continue reading →

Posted in content strategy, technical writing | Tagged algorithms, content strategy, ranking, technical writing, top 10 | 19 Comments

Following punctuation rules? Don’t forget to think!

Posted on 2 January 2012 by David Farbey

Ugur Akinci published a useful post earlier this week on The Discipline of Punctuation in Technical Writing. I agree with Ugur’s general point, that technical writing needs to display “discipline, precision, and consistency”, and with many of his specific statements, but there is one statement he makes that I think requires some clarification. Continue reading →

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Plenty of UK events in 2012

Posted on 28 December 2011 by David Farbey

Happy new year everyone. If you are interested in technical communication, information design, or content strategy (or any combination of the three!) there’s a lot going on in the UK in 2012. Here are just a few of the highlights from the first few months of the new year:

18th January 2012, London – a screening of the film Push the Button, a short French film about user instructions, which has had English subtitles added. It’s being screened at a joint event held by the ISTC and the Information Design Association.
24th January 2012, London – a series of “lightning talks” presented by the London Content Strategy Meet-Up. Let me declare an interest here: I am going to be one of the speakers at this event.
1st and 2nd March 2012, Richmond, London – the Content Strategy Applied Conference for 2012.
12th and 13th April, 2012, Greenwich, London – the Information Design Association Conference. Once again, I need to declare an interest, as I will be speaking at this event as well.

Looking ahead to the autumn, the Technical Communication UK 2012 conference is taking place in Newcastle. I have the honour of being Chair of this year’s conference, and I am already working on a long list of tasks. The call for speakers will be published in January, and I’ll post a link about this here as soon as it is.

Posted in content strategy, information design, technical writing | Tagged content strategy, events, information design, technical communication | Leave a comment

The “Minimum Effective Dose” of Content

Posted on 20 November 2011 by David Farbey

When I spoke at the Congility Conference in May 2011 I used the phrase “minimum effective dose” to describe the amount of content we need to deliver to our users. This is a phrase that arose in discussions about content strategy at the company where I work, which is a developer of software systems for the clinical trials industry. Many of my work colleagues have spent the whole of their working lives in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors and therefore this sort of analogy to medical practice comes easily to them. It would, therefore, be wrong for me to claim sole authorship of the phrase or its application to technical communication. I am delighted, however, that the phrase has caught on and that eminent speakers in our industry such as Noz Urbina and Rahel Bailie have recently quoted the term from my talk in their own presentations. Continue reading →

Posted in content strategy, information design, technical writing | Tagged technical writing | Leave a comment

Don’t write about the “Cancel” button

Posted on 30 October 2011 by David Farbey

In my opinion, when you are creating task-based help topics for software users you don’t necessarily need to write about the Cancel button in a dialog box. Here’s why. Continue reading →

Posted in content strategy, technical writing | Tagged online help, technical writing | 8 Comments

Be a “pig” not a “chicken”!

Posted on 26 September 2011 by David Farbey

In agile software development team members often distinguish between two kinds of participants, ”pigs” and “chickens”. The allusion is to a meal of bacon-and-eggs, in which a chicken may have an interest but to which a pig is “fully commited”! Continue reading →

Posted in technical writing | Tagged agile programming | 3 Comments

Another Myth About Content

Posted on 11 September 2011 by David Farbey

It’s time for a few more comments from me on Myths About Content. (For myths 1 and 2 please see my earlier post.)

Myth no. 3 – Content is easy to find

One of the most pervasive myths about content is that “search conquers all”; that is, once you have published your content, every user can find whatever they are looking for, without much effort. So as long as your users have a search button, you have done your job. You can stop worrying, stop thinking about your users, and go down to the pub and relax.

This myth is particularly annoying. I get frustrated when I go to a website and can’t find what I’m looking for when I use search. I’m sure that even the people who declare that full-text search is the only thing they need to provide their users with get equally frustrated when that happens to them. Continue reading →

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Myths About Content

Posted on 24 August 2011 by David Farbey

People who aren’t directly involved in creating content often hold a set of beliefs about what content is and how it is created that can only be described as myths. That may sound a little harsh, because believing in myths implies being divorced from reality, but I can’t think of a better explanation.
Continue reading →