A user asks questions when stuck in product use. Displaying information-seeking behavior, they search for answers; and it’s you—the technical communicator—who is responsible for providing them with one. But then you get stuck as you ask yourself: how long should the answer be? As the question of topic size, (as in a DITA topic), continues to be controversial in the technical communication community, we also need to ask ourselves how the size of an answer relates to the size of a topic. My conclusion is that users prefer short answers. Why is this?

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DITA has come a long way in the seven years since my last blog post. There are more resources, more and better tools, and livelier discussions on the DITA user groups. Yet Tony Self's What's Impeding DITA Adoption?, written just two years ago, still has currency. Why?

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Research has shown that most people avoid using the traditional book-like manual, whether it’s on- or offline. Researchers have provided a number of explanations to why this is the case. One common explanation is that users avoid manuals since they perceive them to be difficult to search.

In response, many technical communicators are exploring innovative new ways to design and deliver user assistance to make manuals more user-friendly. To make the manual an option for the user, we need to make answers easy to find.

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Proficiency in the soft-skills is the key to the success or failure of any project. For example: Are you trying to get your DITA, Single-Sourcing, or other project off the ground? Trying to get your team, people from other groups, teams, departments, or organizations behind you? Trying to get management to support you? Then this session is for you!

• Session Title: What's in it for me?
• TC Dojo: Open Session
• Audience: All levels
• Cost: Free

Description: 

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Release date: October 7, 2013

Syncro Soft, the developer of the Oxygen XML suite of products, announced the immediate availability of version 15.1 of its Oxygen XML Editor, Oxygen XML Author and Oxygen XML Developer products containing a comprehensive set of tools supporting all the XML related technologies.

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