Three-day brief, intensive seminar on technical documentation
The brief, intensive itl seminar on technical documentation – bringing together 35 years of practical expertise.
We offer the benefit of years of practical experience – combined with the right theory.
- Constantly up to date:
The latest trends and the most important perennial issues in the field of technical documentation. - Participants at the centre of focus:
Bring your examples of technical documentation with you. The trainer will be happy to include them in the seminar. (Be bold, he who dares wins!) - Practice-related seminar documents:
You receive the seminar documents and exercises as a collection of PDF files that you can easily annotate during the seminar. The result is a collection of information that will serve as a valuable work of reference in your everyday working life.
Next event 22.-24.09.2020
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The essentials are readability, user friendliness and process orientation.
Theory- and practice-based models
Why do we talk about best practice but not best theory?
Learning by doing without a theoretical basis remains just a patchwork.
Readability – the concept
From Hamburg via Vienna and Karlsruhe to Munich – we present the Munich readability model, the comprehensive model for technical documentation.
It will all become clear to you, in much the same way as Mark Twain described: "The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter – it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning."
Readability – word selection and terminology
Why is it always best to call a spade a spade? Why is terminology essential rather than just nice to have.
And why is a general dictionary no longer enough?
Readability – sentence structure
Why simple sentence structure is ideal for good technical documentation.
Why what they taught you about writing at school can lead you astray.
Readability – information elements, sequencing
The best of Information Mapping®, Funktionsdesign®, DITA® and the principles of parallelism.
Warning messages
Why it is essential to correct the myths about ANSI, ISO and SAFE.
Exclusive: all signal words in 40 languages, all the key parts of widely used standards and directives.
Readability – mental models
Why we don't understand each other and when we understand each other. Knowledge of mental models as the key to readability.
Readability – visualisation
Mental models are the starting point for efficient visualisation.
The analogy of typesetting rules for clear visual grammar.
The new possibilities of moving images (videos, 3D, animated GIFs).
Process orientation – topic design
From document orientation to topic design.Every page is page one.
Users don't want to read for the sake of it; they want answers to questions: the solution is topic design rather than chapters and sections.
Process orientation – structuring, modularisation, classification
The difference between modules and topics. From conventional Information Structure Design to PI® classification. The best of Information Mapping®, Funktionsdesign® and DITA®.
User experience design (UxD) for technical documentation
How do you use technical documentation? What may seem obvious for printed documentation no longer applies to electronic documentation. Electronic documentation is subject to the same ergonomic criteria as any other piece of software.
The term user experience design has become established relatively recently. itl has operationalised the established ergonomics standards such as ISO 9241-110, 11, 112 and 210 for electronic documentation from a user experience design viewpoint and developed a new conceptual framework, itl-UxD. There are its key elements:
- PentaQuest: efficient implementation of Persona modelling for technical documentation
- Usage context and usage categories: the basis for all information modelling
- Media-related aspects: the fundamental parameters of multimedia-based user information
Legislation – directives – standards
The seminar navigates a path through the jungle of directives, legislation and standards involved in technical documentation. At the same time, widely held assumptions, such as that technical documentation has to be created using particular software or printed on paper, are exposed as myths.
