Category Archives: work

Imagine yourself in a situation where you have limited software options to make simple and short technical documents. What do you do?

Do you:

• ask your supervisor to purchase the appropriate software?
• work with what you have and impress your supervisors with your skills?
• take the work home and complete it with your own software?

You may agree that a smart technical communicator will use the tools they have available at work. In any regard, it is the skill and innovation demonstrated by the technical communicator that matters the most when it comes to documentation–including how to present it in a professional manner.

Most likely the average office computer has a current version of Microsoft Windows and Office Suite. If that is the case, you have the tools you need to make some decent and professional-looking technical documents. (Note: Adobe makes great software for documentation; I wish it were on more computers out there).

If your computer has Windows 7, you are in luck, there is a tool called Snip. Search for it by typing “snip” in the search box on the Start Menu. If your computer has Mac OS X, there is a tool called Grab. Search for it by typing “grab” in the Spotlight search box. Both of these programs can capture screenshots of windows, parts of windows, or the entire computer screen. There is a free program called Jing, which offers similar functions and has the ability to create screencasts. If you are familiar with Camtasia and SnagIt, it is their little cousin.

After capturing screenshots, what program do you use to label them?

The answer is PowerPoint. It may sound counterintuitive to use a program designed for presentations to create documentation, but it is the simplest and easiest designer tool out of the Microsoft Office Suite for this purpose. Think of PowerPoint as a versatile tool, which you can insert and arrange arrows, boxes, circles, highlighter marks, and text. Why would you not want to use Paint or some drawing tool? The advantage to using PowerPoint instead of Paint is the ability to save the screenshot and edit it later if there are changes to the documentation.

What software would you use to write documentation?

Use Word with style. After the screenshots are labeled in PowerPoint, the slides can be saved as images and inserted into Word. Save the PowerPoint presentation as slide images.

You can save PowerPoint slides as an image in order to export into Word.

While this may be an alternative way to create documentation, it can look extremely professional. If some of the documentation entails multiple pages and various sections, utilize Word Styles to maintain consistent fonts, indentations, colors, and overall design. It’s not difficult to learn Word Styles if you haven’t done so, and it can establish experience with document design when you may have the opportunity to use advanced programs such as Adobe InDesign, FrameMaker, RoboHelp, etc.

While your office may not have the greatest tools in the shed, at least you have the fundamental software available to create simple and helpful documentation that your supervisors and co-workers can greatly appreciate.

WriteTechie WordPress Example showcasing how you can use boxes and a color-coded system to show users how to use the WordPress administrative interface.

If your company has the available funds to purchase more advanced software, go right ahead and take advantage of the opportunity. Otherwise, the tools you have to create great and professional documentation is sitting on your computer. Why not use them?

Creating Different Versions

The great advantage about using PowerPoint for labeling screenshots is if your manager or team leader needs an image updated or wants to see alternative screenshot designs; you could create and edit them quickly. For example, I created another version of the screenshot for saving PowerPoint slides as images. Instead of using a standard callout box, I used a callout bubble.

This screenshot is an outtake of the first example. Note instead of a standard callout box, it is a callout bubble.

Last note

If you don’t have Word or PowerPoint, you can use Apple iWork, OpenOffice, LibreOffice or your favorite office suite in a similar way to create and design documentation. There may be some compatibility issues and programs may render images and documents differently due to differences in how the software works, but it is still better than a lack of documentation with corresponding images and labels.

At work, I was asked to create a map to guide our clients to specific workstations that have Kurzweil optical character recognition (OCR) software. Students use the OCR reader to scan in documents and use the computer read the text for them. Given the task, it had to be simple to read and understand quickly by anyone who doesn’t know where the workstations are at.

Location for Kurzweil Software

Location for Kurzweil Software

When I finished drafting up a couple of maps, I surveyed two of my co-workers. I picked two people who have a wide varying degree of knowledge with regard to locations on campus. It was smart for me to pick  two individuals, one who is unfamiliar with the area and another who knows exactly where to go.

My first tester was one of our student workers in the department. Since she is a freshman and new to our community college, she was very useful to develop my maps to help our clients who may be unfamiliar with campus. The second person I tested the maps with was one of our department secretaries. I included one our secretaries in my quick usability testing because they are very familiar with campus and they can add details that I may miss that could be important.

My results were positive. Both testers quickly understood the map for SRC 120; however, they had difficulty understanding the SRC 2nd Floor map. The problem with the 2nd Floor map is the complicated layout of the area and my map made it look far less complex. For example, each of those ovals has 6 computer workstations. Out of 72 computers, there is only one machine that has Kurzweil. I quickly added a few more details to the map, such as desks and rooms to make it easier to read.

The take-away from my task was that it’s important to test users who have different kinds of knowledge about their surroundings. While I understand these maps are very rudimentary, my usability testing helped improve the maps for a specific audience. When you don’t have much time to test a final product, finding two individuals from the office works very well.