In researching "Trends in Online Help" I found "Trends in Technical Communication" (Brandon, Magnuson, Hoeppner, Melsted, a 2000 STC Conference Proceeding presentation)
The authors claim that "the best products are created and developed when the user is involved in the project."
Perhaps technical writers should compile information from user-authored content to help engineers make products better. This sounds like an entirely different research project than the one I am after. I am researching how technical writers could manage user-authored content. But now I am thinking that user-authored content could be used to make products better.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
"online help" Twitter Search
On October 10, 2010, I searched twitter for "online help". Here are some of the results relevant to my research on user-authored online help:
Note: Since tweets are public, I am posting the entire twitter message including the user's name:
DylanReeve: Evaluating @GoogleApps at work, but unusual email setup makes it difficult - online help useless, and impossible to actually talk to anyone!
mpmselenic: Great new feature from the #Mercurial sprint: online help in hg serve (http://www.selenic.com/hg/help) (this tweet was re-tweeted several times)
cruzDINERO: This is #twitter , nawt yhur online help center
delicious50: Using default views in your module | Views online help http://bit.ly/a7McEV
IndiansInParis: If you are in doubt about your written French, get reference and online help from French lexicon and grammar site. http://bit.ly/orthonet
Note: Since tweets are public, I am posting the entire twitter message including the user's name:
DylanReeve: Evaluating @GoogleApps at work, but unusual email setup makes it difficult - online help useless, and impossible to actually talk to anyone!
mpmselenic: Great new feature from the #Mercurial sprint: online help in hg serve (http://www.selenic.com/hg/help) (this tweet was re-tweeted several times)
cruzDINERO: This is #twitter , nawt yhur online help center
delicious50: Using default views in your module | Views online help http://bit.ly/a7McEV
IndiansInParis: If you are in doubt about your written French, get reference and online help from French lexicon and grammar site. http://bit.ly/orthonet
Saturday, October 9, 2010
The acceptance of blogs: using a customer experiential value perspective
Ching-Jui, Keng, and Ting Hui-Ying. 2009. "The acceptance of blogs: using a customer experiential value perspective." Internet Research 19, no. 5: 479-495. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed October 9, 2010).
Uses interesting search terms:
Subject Terms:
*BLOGS
*ELECTRONIC documents
*INTERPERSONAL communication
*SOCIAL ethics
*ONLINE information services
*INTERNET users
*MATHEMATICAL models
*EMPIRICAL research
*CONSUMERS
Why do I want to research this article?
Because "this paper aims to examine emotional experiences that internet users gain while reading blogs..."
If internet users are gaining emotional experiences while reading blogs then perhaps that is a motivator for seeking online help from a blog as opposed to the corporate documentation or company product manual.
If this is true and users are seeking out an emotional experience online, then there must be something unemotional about corporate and company product documentation. There must be something lacking in the way of personal experiences and emotional experiences.
How do we as technical writers incorporate emotional experiences into online help to draw in readers?
This paper's findings includes "empirical results demonstrates that: interpersonal interaction enhances browsers, aesthetic experiences as well as playfulness; machine interaction generates high aesthetics value which comprises visual and entertainment effects, service excellence, and CROI; perceived similarity by readers positively influences the four components of customer experiential value:..."
Uses interesting search terms:
*ELECTRONIC documents
*INTERPERSONAL communication
*SOCIAL ethics
*ONLINE information services
*INTERNET users
*MATHEMATICAL models
*EMPIRICAL research
*CONSUMERS
Why do I want to research this article?
Because "this paper aims to examine emotional experiences that internet users gain while reading blogs..."
If internet users are gaining emotional experiences while reading blogs then perhaps that is a motivator for seeking online help from a blog as opposed to the corporate documentation or company product manual.
If this is true and users are seeking out an emotional experience online, then there must be something unemotional about corporate and company product documentation. There must be something lacking in the way of personal experiences and emotional experiences.
How do we as technical writers incorporate emotional experiences into online help to draw in readers?
This paper's findings includes "empirical results demonstrates that: interpersonal interaction enhances browsers, aesthetic experiences as well as playfulness; machine interaction generates high aesthetics value which comprises visual and entertainment effects, service excellence, and CROI; perceived similarity by readers positively influences the four components of customer experiential value:..."
Friday, October 8, 2010
How do technical writers manage user-authored content in a read/write web environment?
On October 5, 2010, I posted the following Feed on my Yammer:
How do technical writers manage user-authored content in a read/write web environment? When a user posts content that is either outdated, in error, or in conflict with company values, should this be managed? If so, how?
EA (identity hidden): I think it's absolutely the case we need to manage it, in a respectful way. We owe it to those that would read our work to make sure that the content they rely on is accurate and consistent. That said, user-authored content is often a gift - of the author's time, energies, or knowledge, and we need to [sic] those contributions with gratitude. As a contributor, I'd like to be contacted and told that my efforts were appreciated and told either that my information is incorrect and pointed to the correct information, or that there might be a better way to phrase what I'd written.
Chief Architect
Should organizations keep a running dialogue with users who blog about their products?
I posted this to Yammer on October 5, 2010:
Should organizations keep a running dialogue with users who blog about their products?
OGH (identity hidden) replied: Absolutely. Isn't that the potential of tools like Twitter and Facebook?
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Chat Transcript with St. Bonaventure Univ. Librarian 5am Oct 5 2010
Chat Transcript
Other than in "technical communication" journals, where else might I find information about user-authored content?
5:16:29
Librarian 'St. Bonaventure Univ. Librarian Ann has joined the session.
Hello Tara
I'm Ann, a librarian in New York State
Your library and mine work together to staff this service
Hi Ann
When you say "user-authored," what type of item/software/etc. are these users using?
It could be software or hardware. For example, there are many unofficial user forums that talk about how to use the Palm Pixi smart phone. My theory is that users seek out help from each other before going to the official documentation.
That is interesting. Let me think about how we could approach this in a search! I'm thinking one way to approach this might be to take a look at how users groups function. I'll pull up a list of databases from your library, so we can try this theory out.
ME: Yes, that is someting I hadn't thought of - the discourse communities and how they function might be interesting to research.
Librarian: I see that your library has Academic Search Premier -- that might be a good database to use to start. This search string retrieved some articles that might be relevant: computer AND "user group"
ME: I think I'm looking for more about the psychological reasons why someone would trust another user over the corporate documentation.
Librarian: Okay that gives me some additional ideas for ways to search. We would look for information on whether users found corporation documentation, or online help provided by the vendor, difficult to use as well.
Try (DE "COMPUTER users") or (DE "COMPUTER users -- Attitudes"). Some of the articles here look interesting and this search string can be combined...
Me: Yes thank you - I found "User attitudes towards news content personalization" I tried "Psychology" + "Web 2.0" also.
Summary
This librarian provided me another search avenue - whether or not the users found online help provided by the vendor to be difficult to use. Maybe that's why they prefer user communities over "vendor" help. There must be some research that points to this - perhaps someone has conducted a study and found that users attitudes towards "vendor" help is that the "vendor" help is difficult to use.
Other than in "technical communication" journals, where else might I find information about user-authored content?
5:16:29
Librarian 'St. Bonaventure Univ. Librarian Ann has joined the session.
Hello Tara
I'm Ann, a librarian in New York State
Your library and mine work together to staff this service
Hi Ann
When you say "user-authored," what type of item/software/etc. are these users using?
It could be software or hardware. For example, there are many unofficial user forums that talk about how to use the Palm Pixi smart phone. My theory is that users seek out help from each other before going to the official documentation.
That is interesting. Let me think about how we could approach this in a search! I'm thinking one way to approach this might be to take a look at how users groups function. I'll pull up a list of databases from your library, so we can try this theory out.
ME: Yes, that is someting I hadn't thought of - the discourse communities and how they function might be interesting to research.
Librarian: I see that your library has Academic Search Premier -- that might be a good database to use to start. This search string retrieved some articles that might be relevant: computer AND "user group"
ME: I think I'm looking for more about the psychological reasons why someone would trust another user over the corporate documentation.
Librarian: Okay that gives me some additional ideas for ways to search. We would look for information on whether users found corporation documentation, or online help provided by the vendor, difficult to use as well.
Try (DE "COMPUTER users") or (DE "COMPUTER users -- Attitudes"). Some of the articles here look interesting and this search string can be combined...
Me: Yes thank you - I found "User attitudes towards news content personalization" I tried "Psychology" + "Web 2.0" also.
Summary
This librarian provided me another search avenue - whether or not the users found online help provided by the vendor to be difficult to use. Maybe that's why they prefer user communities over "vendor" help. There must be some research that points to this - perhaps someone has conducted a study and found that users attitudes towards "vendor" help is that the "vendor" help is difficult to use.
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