Monthly Watercooler Chat is May 14

(The SIG holds informal phone chats almost every month. By popular demand at the STC Summit 2013, we will now publicise them here on the blog and not just on our internal discussion list.)

Don’t forget our monthly SIG chat is tomorrow, May 14th, at 17:00-18:00 CET (GMT +0100) / 11.00am-12.00pm EST.

For most of us, our work involves communicating with text. Yet there’s a growing demand from users for information using images or sound. This month’s chat is on how we are dealing with such a demand, particularly if we’re working for a global market that requires multiple languages.

This is a joint chat with the International SIG members. We can share our ideas and knowledge.

The topic for this month’s discussion is:

Textless Communication: Graphics, Video, Audio

Some questions to perhaps consider in our discussion: What type of textless communication are we doing and for what type of products? What are users asking for? What are the challenges we face to produce graphics, video and audio content (eg, skills, tools, time, budgets,…)? What are the cost issues? What challenges do we face when localising graphics, video and audio content? How are you dealing with the localisation issues?

If you have any examples of work you’ve done in this area that you would like to discuss, send an example to me to display online during our chat.

A few links on the topic worth looking at are:

Our Watercooler Chat is informal. No speaker, no PowerPoints, no audio recording. It’s moderated. No prior registration is required. It’s free. Bring your experience, ideas and questions to share and discuss with fellow communicators located around the world.

The call-in details are the same for every Watercooler Chat and are sent out in a separate email to discussion list members. Telephone numbers for around the world are provided as well as a webinar link for VoIP.

An STC Europe Summit wrap-up

Whew! The 2013 Summit is over, and many will require long naps to catch up on their sleep!

News about the Summit

Speaking of catching up, go to the Summit site on Lanyrd where all the sessions are listed. Each session is updated, or being updated, with slides and related blog posts.

Two people were very diligent at blogging at the Summit. Sarah Maddox probably wins the prize for live blogging. Sarah’s last post from the Summit collects all her Summit posts in one list. Grab a cup of coffee or tea and enjoy a good read. While you are in reading mode, continue over to Kai Weber’s Summit posts for more great blog posts about the Summit.

Searching for sessions that interest you is easiest on Lanyrd, but you can also go straight to SlideShare and search for “stc13″. All presenters were encouraged to post their slides there with the tag stc13.

Eventifier has a collection of photos, tweets, and more from the Summit.

Summit@aClick

If Lanyrd and Slideshare made you long to revisit some sessions, don’t worry. You can! All attendees will receive access to Summit@aClick in 6-8 weeks. If you didn’t attendee, you can already preorder Summit@aClick, which is all the recorded sessions in one package.

Handouts

We had some English-language copies of “How to Write Clearly” on our table at the Summit’s Communities Reception. You can download a free copy of “How to Write Clearly” in the EU bookstore in 23 languages!

You can download the SIG’s brochure (910 KB) for 2013 as a PDF. We had this as a handout at the Summit, too.

And the winner is…

We gave away two subscriptions to the digital Multilingual Magazine during the conference. The winners were Helen O’Shea and Britta Voigt. They have been notified separately.

The magazine is a great resource if you work with internationalisation, localisation, or globalisation issues. Visit their magazine website where you will also find a blog, a free newsletter, the latest news from the industry, and much more. You can also follow them on Twitter at @multilingualmag.

Let’s chat about terminology and best practices

Our latest monthly chat was on a topic at the core of technical communication: terminology. Fourteen of us working in technical communication and translation got together by phone/web chat to share our thoughts and experiences on this topic and hear how we were all managing our terminology.

Terminology isn’t just for localisation

Unfortunately when some companies hear the word “terminology”, they simply think “localisation” – terminology management is a part of the translation process. But it actually kicks in right at the beginning of product development. If you don’t watch your source language terms (for most of us that’s English), then you risk messing up your translated terms too, impacting quality, cost, and time to market of your products across all languages.

Most of us in the chat had between 500 and 5000 English terms documented, usually kept in Microsoft Excel. Some used a permission-based wiki to manage their company’s source language terminology as it is ideal for sharing and collecting information in a central repository. A participant remarked that terminology management systems (TMS), which are used to store and retrieve terminology information, can be difficult to implement.

Yet many of us have problems keeping terminology consistent and correct across all our required languages. And a frequent reason was multiple groups across a company creating their own terms, such as software developers.

Best practice: Collect and control terminology early in a product development cycle.

Who “owns” the terminology?

We agreed that the terminology management process and reaching consensus were more important for ensuring consistent and correct terminology than which tool is used to manage the terms.

Practically none of us had access to a terminologist. The terminology work usually falls upon the technical writers and translators. Yet a common problem faced by several in the group was not being included in the team designing the user interface and advising on the terms to be used. One translator in the call has been asked by a client to propose English terms for them to use in their software.

A couple of us were in the fortunate, and enviable, position where the Technical Publications department is responsible for their all company’s English terminology. In one company the developers can’t use a term in the user interface unless it has been approved by Technical Publications. Sadly this is not usual in most companies.

Best practice: Have a terminology team that selects, defines, and approves the terms.

Controlling the English

Unfortunately for many of us dealing with inconsistent or poorly defined terminology is a regular problem.

One solution proposed in the chat is to use simplified English. One participant uses an open-source (and free) term checker for ASD Simplified Technical English, which is fully customisable. Go to simplified-english.co.uk for more information on this tool.

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) had a mixed impact on terminology. Sometimes companies let acquired/merged groups keep their different terminologies as often their products stay separate. However, when products are integrated following an M&A, reaching consensus on terminology can often become political. Managing terms then becomes particularly complicated.

Best practice: Use consistent and correct terminology that has been approved by the company.

Importance of structuring terminology

The translators in the group regularly have to work with terms that are poorly defined so it’s often difficult for them to know the context and figure out how to translate the terms.

We need to provide more information about a term than simply its definition. If you only provide a list of English terms and their translations without definitions or context, then over time the quality of the software and documentation translations will decrease. Unfortunately we didn’t have time to discuss how we collect our terms.

Every term should at least have a definition, subject field, context, part of speech (noun, verb, adjective, or adverb), and abbreviation/acronym (if relevant). Depending on how many products and channels there are, you could also classify the terms by product/channel group. It’s also worth thinking about including the associated deprecated terms so that everyone knows not to use them.

Best practice: Document each term with appropriate metadata.

Find out more on managing terminology

An excellent document how to manage terminology is: Terminology for Large Organizations (link opens PDF).

Results of a survey done in 2010 on terminology practices in the localisation & translation industry: TTC Survey 2010 (link opens PDF).

The Europe SIG roadmap to the STC Summit

The STC Summit 2013 kicks off on Sunday, May 5. You can follow the complete Summit schedule Lanyrd. Attendees can mark the sessions they are attending. Everyone – at the Summit or at home – can track sessions to make sure they get the slides and reviews on that session.

STCSummit2013banner

This blog post highlights a few items in the program that might interest members of the SIG or any of our readers. Remember, these are just a small sampling of the many sessions at the Summit. Review the program on Lanyrd or in the PDF sent to attendees to find many, many more.

Throughout the conference, remember to stop by the Exhibition Hall and visit the vendors who truly make the Summit possible. The hours are 7.00 PM –8.30 PM on Sunday during the Welcome Reception. Then, from 9.30 AM to 5.00 PM on Monday and Tuesday.

SIG activities at the Summit

Two important events to highlight are the Europe SIG meeting and the Communities reception.

The Europe SIG meeting is on Tuesday morning from 7.15 AM to 8.15 AM. This is an informal meeting where members and interested non-members are welcome. We’ll meet in the Sway Restaurant in Hyatt lobby. Grab your own breakfast and join us for discussions about the SIG, what we’ve been doing, and what SIG members want the SIG to do. Members of the International Technical Communication SIG and Canadian SIG are especially welcome!

On Monday, from 6.30 PM to 8.00 PM, visit all the STC SIGs at the Communities Reception in the Centennial Ballroom. The Europe SIG will be there ready to have lively conversations with all visitors. Look for the EU flag on the table.

Session highlights, Monday, May 6

10.00 AM – 11.00 AM Lightning Talks, Session 1, Hanover CD presented by Ray Gallon, Alyssa Fox, Karen Mardahl, Kit Brown-Hoekstra, Michael Opsteegh, Nathaniel Lim and Marcia Wood in Hannover CD

3.30 PM – 4.30 PM And Then There Was One … Documentation Team presented by Kirsty Taylor in Hanover CD

Session highlights, Tuesday, May 7

7.15 AM – 8.15 AM Europe SIG Meeting presented by SIG webmaster, Karen Mardahl in the Sway Restaurant in the Hyatt lobby (PS there will be a drawing!)

8.30 AM – 9.30 AM The 10 Golden Rules of Global Content Strategy presented by Val Swisher in Grand Hall East B

10.00 AM – 11.00 AM Communication and Translation Progression presented by Kirsty Taylor, Whitney Quesenbery, Alan J. Porter, Christopher Bartis, Ann Jennings and Mary Dulin in Regency V

11.30 AM – 12-30 PM International Technical Communication and Canada SIG Meeting (STC-ITC and STC-Canada) presented by Gina Goodson Wadley in Hanover FG – Europe SIG members are very welcome at this lunchtime meeting

1.00 PM – 2 PM Using Foreign-Accented Speech: To Localize or Not? presented by Halcyon Lawrence in Hanover AB

1.00 PM – 2 PM Introduction to Multilanguage Terminology Management presented by David Sommer in Hanover E (Sponsored by Net-Translators)

4.00 PM – 5.00 PM Man Versus Machine in the Translation World presented by David Sommer in Hanover E (Sponsored by Net-Translators)

Session highlights, Wednesday, May 8

11.30 AM – 12.30 PM Writing for Everyone: SEO, ESL, Translation, and Accessibility presented by Char James-Tanny in Grand Hall East D

Happy anniversary, STC!

Did you know that STC celebrates its 60th anniversary this year? That means there’s a 60th Anniversary Celebration Party, of course! It’s right after the Communities Reception. It’s in the same place – the Centennial Ballroom, so stay for a celebration on Monday!

What are your conference plans? Share them in the comments.

Why we need to know about EU Directives

by Kelly Parks, Membership Manager

Let’s say you were creating documentation for consumers in a European Union (EU) state. You have a plethora of issues to consider: adequate research, the consumer’s language, translation costs…the list goes on. However, laws can vary depending on which EU state the product will be sold in. The EU Commission created Directives in an effort to harmonize these laws and make it easier to do business across the member states.

What are European directives and how are they different from European regulations?

The purpose of directives is to harmonise the laws of different member states of the EU. These directives set out goals that all EU countries must achieve. However, each country is allowed to decide how they reach those goals. “National authorities have to adapt their laws to meet these goals,” says Europa.eu, “But are free to decide how to do so.” There are directives for almost any topic, including:

  • Healthcare, medical devices, and pharmaceuticals
  • Environment and the conservation of animals and habitats
  • Copyrights and trademarks

Regulations, however, are far stricter. They are cold, hard rules. Europa.eu describes regulations as “…the most direct form of EU law – as soon as they are passed, they have binding legal force throughout every [EU] Member State, on a par with national laws. National governments do not have to take action themselves to implement EU regulations.”

Do European directives affect technical documentation?

Absolutely. Take the Waste Electrical and Electrical Equipment (WEEE) directive as an example. As part of the WEEE directive, the WEEE symbol
(shown below) must be visible on applicable electrical products. This symbol means that the product does not belong in public waste. If you are writing the user documentation for such a product, you are responsible for ensuring that:

  • This symbol is defined on user documents.
  • Information is provided as to where the product can be disposed of.
  • The potential environmental impacts of disposing this item in public waste are clearly communicated.
WEEE symbol
Chances are you’ve probably seen this symbol on your laptop or home computer. This symbol means that the product should not be disposed of in any public waste system. Companies are required, under the WEEE directive, to place this symbol on all electrical equipment. Source: Wikimedia commons

For more information on the WEEE Directive, visit the EU legislation summary page on waste electrical and electronic equipment.

To complicate matters, directives (and regulations) are written in legal verbiage that can cause glossy-eye syndrome. The legal verbiage makes it hard for technical communicators to understand the directives and how to address them in their documentation. Therefore, it’s important that technical communicators work closely with their regulatory or legal manager.

Each directive document presents a large amount of information that needs to be sifted through. However, it is time well spent because the consequences of not following the directives are worth avoiding. If the user documentation does not meet the goals set out in the directives, the product cannot be sold in the EU – which puts the technical communicator in a rather rough spot.

What has been your experience in working with directives? Share in the comments section.

The SIG at the Summit

The STC Summit 2013 is only 3 weeks away! The SIG webmaster, Karen Mardahl, will be representing the SIG.

SIG events include the Community Event on Monday evening and the Tuesday morning business breakfast at the hotel.

Are you a SIG member who is attending the Summit? Let us know in the comments. We’ll also discuss the Summit events in our discussion list.

Visit the Summit pages on Lanyrd for the full schedule of the entire conference. Remember, this is not just for attendees. You can track events and news on Lanyrd, too.

Stay tuned for more information!

Logo for the STC Summit 2013

TCeurope Colloquium on Mobile Communications in Brussels, 19 April

Mobile Communications is the topic for the next TCeurope Colloquium scheduled for Friday 19 April 2013 in Brussels, Belgium.

The invitation to the Colloquium says,

For technical communications, this offers exciting opportunities to re-evaluate what and how we write. TCeurope would like to explore the advantages and challenges of producing technical documentation for mobile devices. For this, we invite you to share your expertise and experiences.

Registration and programme details details are on the TCeurope site. Admission is free! There may be a charge for no-shows, however.

The TCeurope Honours Award will be presented at this event.

(Update: Comments are closed due to massive spamming on this posting.)

TCeurope Honours Award for Outstanding Service to Technical Communication

We have received notice of the call for nominations for the TCeurope Honours Award. The closing date for the nominations is 20 March 2013. The winner will be announced at the TCeurope Colloquium in Brussels on 19 April 2013.

The details are as follows:

The TCeurope Honours Award is given every two years to recognise and honour the work by European professionals in the field of technical communication. This can be the work of European individuals, groups, teams, university departments or organisations who have contributed valuable services to technical communication in Europe. The competition is open to anyone working in the field of technical communication in a European country, and is not restricted to the members of TCe associations.

The service can be anything that demonstrates the value of technical communication, improves working practices in the profession, or promotes the field of technical communication to wider audiences. The service must extend beyond national boundaries to at least one other European country. The service provided can be long term or within the past 12 months.

Nominations should be presented in the form of a letter of recommendation. Nominating yourself or your organisation is not allowed.

The letter of recommendation must include:

  • the name of the person(s) or organisation
  • a summary of the achievement(s)
  • an outline of the process used by the person or team, if known
  • a summary of the benefits from the person’s or team’s action(s)
  • (optional) samples of the person’s or team’s work

Please send the letter to: award@tceurope.org

(Update: Comments are closed due to massive spamming on this posting.)

Let’s chat about reviews

The STC Europe SIG holds monthly chats on a variety of technical communication topics with a focus on international and European issues. People phone in (for the cost of a local call or using VoIP) from the US and Europe to share their experience and knowledge.

This month we had a joint chat with TCeurope (a European umbrella organisation of many national organisations for technical communication). We discussed a topic close to all our hearts: Reviews. How do we get our work reviewed and what issues do we face?

Getting reviews from SMEs – A persistent headache

It won’t come as a surprise to learn that many of us had problems getting punctual reviews back from SMEs, indeed sometimes getting any reviews back from them. The problem was often complicated by the SMEs being located in other countries. Frozen travel budgets mean that face-to-face meetings may never happen, making it harder for us to develop a relationship with our distant colleagues.

The poor quality of work by technical writers was an issue for some of us at some stage in our careers, yet surprisingly companies often wouldn’t deal with the problem. As a result SMEs didn’t respect the documentation group and wouldn’t bother reviewing the documentation. And some SMEs don’t consider documentation their problem.

The disappearing editor

Few of us in the chat had the services of an editor yet getting a review by an editor helps to ensure that documentation standards are applied. One way to get around this problem is to do peer reviews. However, not all of us worked with other writers and such reviews weren’t always successful.

Style guides sometimes caused problems such as:

  • Inheriting a style guide from other groups but there was never time to customise it to our own needs.
  • Writers not using the style guide. One person’s company has such a large style guide that none of the technical writers read it. On the flip side, another chat participant had an editor who almost exclusively worked maintaining their style guide and Acrolinx tool so that the writers found it easy to correctly apply documentation standards.

The maturity of a company clearly plays an important role in a company’s approach to documentation quality. Startups tend to focus on improving product quality. More established companies usually have had the time and resources to establish best practices to better ensure documentation quality.

One interesting comment was on the future of content ownership. If documentation continued to have quality problems, perhaps customer-focussed groups such as Marketing, Pre Sales, or Product Management may push to take ownership of it. We should be developing closer working relationships with these groups.

Shared advice

Although there is no one simple solution to solve all our problems with reviews, we shared our knowledge and experience on what can help improve review-related issues:

Build a relationship with your reviewers

Building a relationship with colleagues is crucial for success. If you can’t meet them in person, then do so virtually. Phone them. Use tools such as Webex, Skype, and instant messaging to “meet” them.

Make it easy to review

Avoid sending out a large document for review. Do it in chunks. Send emails with specific questions, and give your emails attention grabbing titles such as “Is this correct?” Highlight the changes in the content that needs to be reviewed. Use a wiki, for example, to encourage people to add their comments.

Make a business case on the cost of poor reviews to the company

Poor reviews impact documentation quality, so Support gets more calls from customers for help, and this costs the company. Sales can also be impacted. Don’t continue to passively accept poor reviews by SMEs. Get to know someone in Finance or Product Management to provide you with data on how much poor documentation could be costing the company. Show the information to those in your company who care about cost, such as the CEO.

I’d like to also thank TCeurope for joining us in this lively discussion. It was great to meet your members and I hope we can do more joint events together.

Update: Comments are closed due to the title attracting lots of spammers.

Call for Proposals for Technical Communication UK 2013

This year’s Technical Communication UK 2013 conference takes place in Bristol, UK on 24-26 September, and you could be a speaker! Yes, the call for proposals is now open at the recently updated TCUK website. Go there now for more details.

Conference Chair, David Farbey, reports that the specialist topic stream for this year’s conference is The Management of Technical Communication. Proposals for presentations within this area are particularly welcome, but you may submit proposals on any topic that you feel will be of interest to technical communication professionals:

  • Content strategy
  • Usability
  • Accessibility
  • Content development
  • Education and training
  • Localisation
  • Tools and techniques
  • You name it!

In feedback from previous conferences delegates have expressed an interest in having a wider variety of presentation topics – “not just presentations on writing help for software” – so the list of suggestions on the Call for Proposals page (more detailed than what is listed here) is just a jumping off point for your imagination. What do you think would be of interest to other technical communicators?

This year, TCUK will be offering sponsors the opportunity to talk about their products and services in designated Vendor Sessions, as part of a sponsorship package. Sponsorship package details will be available soon. However, staff or representatives of vendors are welcome to submit proposals for sessions of general professional or educational interest.

Follow @tcuk_conf on Twitter for the latest details in the coming months.