By far, my favorite conversation of the conference was with Mark Lewis. Mark is a content strategist and DITA educator for Quark. He is also the author of the just-released book, “DITA Metrics 101 – The Business Case for XML and Intelligent Content,” from Rockley Publishing (ISBN 978-0-9865233-4-2). I will be honest – since the book just came out and I just came back from a 2-week vacation, I have not read the whole thing. From the chapters I have read, I like the premise of the book and I think the topic is extremely important.

How DO you make a business case for intelligent content? Going the structured authoring route is not a cheap or simple decision. And, I would add, not everyone needs to do it. But, if you have decided that intelligent content is for you, you are going to have to come up with some significant bucks to make it happen properly. The beauty of Mark’s book is that he puts actual metrics and numbers against all of the things that we kinda-sorta-know save money when we move to a structured environment. Using sample use cases and real numbers, Mark shows you how you can glean savings in a number of areas:

• Writing efficiency
• Topic reuse
• Formatting
• Topic maintenance
• Translation
• Review process

These are the metrics that are often left to the realm of magic. Using spreadsheets and calculations, Mark lays out how to make a business case to show return on investment.

Back to the discussion – Mark and I sat down to talk about the effect of intelligent content on the cost of translation. In his book, Mark has the usual categories well-defined. These include translation savings from reusing content and savings from taking advantage of translation memory. These metrics are important and they are rather easy to calculate.

In addition to reuse and translation memory, there are a number of hidden costs in translation that we often overlook. In no particular order:

• In-country review and iteration. That is, the time it takes for each in-country reviewer to review each translation. And the number of times each reviewer iterates with each translator. If we can minimize iterations, we can save money. After all, the in-country reviewer is probably paid by your company. Reviewing content is undoubtedly not his or her primary job responsibility. We never seem to take into account the cost of these hours. And boy, do they add up.
• Multiple translations of very similar source segments in the translation memory. It happens. In fact, it happens all the time. Over time, most translation memories get filled up with different versions of the same source text (kinda similar, but not exactly, really). And the different versions of the source text each have different translations. In fact, sometimes we get different translations for the same source text. It happens. At that point, we usually call the translation memory “garbaaaage” and find that it isn’t as usable as our translators would like it to be.
• Multiple translation memories, each with different translations for the same or similar content, each being housed by a different translation vendor. As my readers know, this is one of my soapboxes. Most sizable companies use at least two or three translation vendors. And most translation vendors are loathe to share the translation memory with the competition. This means that you end up with multiple translation memories, one for each vendor. Now, if you can manage to keep your languages separated by translation vendor, perhaps you won’t have duplicate entries in the different TMs. But many, many times, different vendors work on the same content in the same languages at some point in time. And now, you potentially have three sets of “garbaaaage” rather than one. This is expensive.
• Non-standardized terminology. Mark and I spent a lot of time talking about terminology (you know this is perhaps my favorite topic of all). As I like to explain, structuring content is great. Making small topics from monolithic structures is fabulous. But if you do not standardize your terminology, and you reuse topics across multiple deliverables, the resulting content probably won’t make a lot of sense to your reader. It certainly won’t be standard or uniform. This problem has a number of costs. Certainly it affects the cost of translation. Say the same thing, the same way, every time you say it. What is the cost of a confused and frustrated customer? How do we quantify that? Support calls? Lost business?

I have asked Mark to start thinking about how we might model some of these hidden costs. That way, we can further make the business case that intelligent content saves money on translation. And, I will add, clean, accurate, simple, and well-written source content (whether structured or not) also is a big part of a business case for translation savings.

Thanks, Mark, for the very interesting chat!

The post Making the Business Case for Intelligent Content appeared first on Content Rules, Inc..

Photo by Asia Brown

Jump for joy! A contest is afoot and you could win some loot. Ready to put your creative writing skills to the test? We are giving away an autographed advance reading copy of Marcia Riefer Johnston’s new book, Word Up! How to Write Powerful Sentences and Paragraphs (And Everything You Build from Them). Be one of the first to get your hands on the book, which is available on April 27th. To win all you have to do is provide a fun, witty or entertaining caption to go along with the photo above featuring Marcia and Val Swisher of Content Rules holding an early copy of the book.

How to Enter:

Include your photo-caption entry as a comment below this blog post or as a tweet to @ContentRulesInc with the hashtag #wordupcaption. To be eligible all entries must be submitted by Friday May 17th at 8 AM PT. The winners will be chosen by Val and team shortly after the deadline.

We will feature the winners in a future blog post. We look forward to what you come Up! with.

The post Caption Contest: Win a Copy of “Word Up!” by Marcia Riefer Johnston appeared first on Content Rules, Inc..

Photo by Wendy Hood

I’ve been thinking about that. T-h-a-t. A handier word you’ll never find. Yet English speakers often omit it. That is left out. Suppressed, grammarians say. Implied.

Suppressing that doesn’t necessarily get you in trouble. Sometimes you can safely omit that when it follows a noun. Take shoes. Few misunderstand when you say the shoes you’re wearing instead of the shoes that you’re wearing.

Still, even following nouns, consider keeping your thats out in the open, especially if you write for those wonder workers we call translators or for people who struggle with English. Our language poses enough challenges when all the words are visible.

When it comes to verbs, though, don’t let that go without saying. Whether or not you write for translation, suppressing that creates what Bryan A. Garner calls miscues.[1] He might well have said “missing cues.” Consider these examples:

• Verify the software has been updated.
• Ensure your valuables are locked up.
• The manager doubted the new hire would have any trouble learning the CMS.

Did you notice the missing cues? The word that is missing after each verb. Each time you run across this type of sentence, your mind mistakes the noun for the verb’s direct object. You stop, back up, reread. See what I mean as you scan these snippets:

• Verify the software … [Verify what? The software. Sounds reasonable.]
• Ensure your valuables … [I should ensure my valuables? Shouldn't I insure them?]
  
• The manager doubted the new hire … [Then why didn't the manager hire someone trustworthy?]

Only after your eyes have moved past the noun—software, valuables, new hire—do you realize that you’ve been misled. You do a mental jig-jog: go back, insert that, and continue. Now you get the sentence’s meaning:

• Verify [that] the software has been updated.
• Ensure [that] your valuables are locked up.
• The manager doubted [that] the new hire would have any trouble learning the CMS.

If your mind were a grammarian, it would be shouting, Aha! The noun tricked me. It isn’t the direct object. The direct object is a bunch of words—a whole clause with an implied subordinating conjunction, a missing that. How’s a reader supposed to know that a clause is coming without some kind of cue? Where was my cue? Where was my that?

When you write, don’t leave your readers cueless. End suppression! Release your inner thats. I believe you … I mean, I believe that you and your readers will feel better when you do.

—

Marcia Riefer Johnston has run a technical-writing business for over two decades. She is a former technical-writing instructor in the Engineering School at Cornell University, a graduate of the Syracuse University creative-writing program, and, most recently, the author of the book Word Up! How to Write Powerful Sentences and Paragraphs (And Everything You Build from Them). For more, see her website: How to Write Everything.

[1]  Garner’s Modern American Usage, 3rd ed., 2009, p. 808.

The post “That” Doesn’t Go Without Saying appeared first on Content Rules, Inc..

Based on comments and LinkedIn group discussions from my previous post, most of us agree that terminology has something to do with words – managing words, controlling how words are used, coming to consensus on how words are used, and so on.

The next question that comes to mind is “Why?” Why should you manage your terminology? After all, terminology management is not only time-consuming, it is never-ending. Sort of like doing laundry. Just when you think, “Yay! All my clothes are clean!” you look down and realize, “Oh, no they’re not. I’m getting my current clothes dirty as we speak.”

There are many good reasons to manage terminology. [Caveat - we are only discussing single-language, U.S. English terminology in this series. The are additional, critical reasons to manage multilingual terminology, but we aren't discussing those right now.]

Before I give you the reasons I’ve thought of, I want to direct you to an excellent article written by Uwe Muegge. The article is from 2007, but all of the information is as applicable now as it was 6 years ago. The title is “Why manage terminology? 10 quick answers.” Here are some of Uwe’s reasons for managing terminology:

Reduces time-to-market

According to Uwe, standardizing terminology across all departments in the organization allows you to take advantage of automated tools and processes. Automation speeds time-to-market. I concur. I would also add that even without automation, using a shared, consistent lexicon across all departments reduces time-to-market for manual processes. For example, review cycles can be shortened because there is an agreed-upon way to refer to things. Reviewers don’t have to parse through multiple terms for the same thing and decide if each different term is accurate. From a content development point of view, I have found that when writers use consistent, agreed-upon terms with subject matter experts, the conversations are more productive. Less time is spent on definitions and making sure that we are all talking about the same thing.

Provides a consistent lexicon that can be used across all parts of the enterprise

I agree with Uwe; terminology management provides a consistent lexicon.  That is what term management does, not why you would use it. A bit farther down in this section, Uwe gets to the heart of the matter. Terminology management makes people more efficient. It also ensures that everyone in the organization communicates the same message and speaks with one voice.

My takeaway…terminology management:

• Makes writing and editing more efficient
• Ensures consistency in all communication

Allows knowledge to be shared across the organization

Terminology management increases the sharing of knowledge. Uwe also mentions that terminology management makes it easier to train new hires and others who are unfamiliar with the domain. This is an interesting idea that I hadn’t thought of, but it makes sense.

Here are my additional reasons to manage terminology.

Consistent content is easier to understand

Regardless of whether your company produces software, hardware or children’s toys, using consistent terminology helps to make your content easier to understand. This is true for all types of content: technical, marketing, sales, services, and so on. Using the same terms in the same ways sets a reading expectation. Your reader (or viewer) spends less time defining additional words and more time doing whatever it is they need to do.

Enforces compliance with legal trademarks, service marks

If there is one thing that drives legal departments berserk, it is using trademarks, registered trademarks, service marks and other legal demarcations incorrectly. An incorrectly used trademark can violate the terms of the trademark. That’s why legal departments get so picky about trademark usage. Managing legal terms helps enforce correct usage.

Lowers the cost of content development and editing

Theoretically, if we all use the same terminology, it should take less time to create content. Rather than searching for a different word to say the same thing, we can just use the approved term. Simple, right? Well, not necessarily. The reason I say “theoretically,” is that managing terms can make content creation go faster, but it can also make the development process take a lot longer. Whether term management is a help or a hindrance depends, in part, on how you manage the terms. If terms are kept in a spreadsheet, table, or other flat file, and the writer has to constantly stop to look up the terms, the time (and cost) of developing content can go way up. If terminology management is done using technology that automatically flags an incorrect term and suggests the correct term, the process of creating content can be much more efficient. I will go into more detail in a future post on ways to manage terminology.

Consistent terminology is faster and, therefore less costly, to edit. I hope we all agree on that one.

Lowers the cost of translation

Consistency lowers the cost of translation. As a refresher, once a segment (phrase) has been translated into a particular language, you do not have to pay to have that same segment translated into that same language again. The caveat is that you have to use the exact same words to begin with. If that doesn’t make sense, you can download my eBook on global-ready content for more information.

Can enhance the perception of quality

This last point is a tricky one. As content creators, we want to believe that there is a direct link between the quality of our content and the perception of our company and products. I know that I want to believe it. And some studies have shown a link.  More importantly, though, is whether content quality is linked in any way to repeat business. I want to believe that it matters; that poor content reflects poorly on a company and, further, results in fewer sales. I don’t actually think that has been the case. I’m pretty sure that top-level executives at many major companies see no correlation. If they did, they would fund better quality content. Over the past five years, I have seen a great deal of budget cutting in content creation groups. Budget cutting almost always leads to cut corners, regardless of how hard we work. Yet, sales at these same cost-busting companies do not appear to have been affected by the content quality in a measurable way. If you know of any data that links content quality directly to repeat business, please share it.

What I do know is this: Crummy content definitely doesn’t enhance the perception of quality. At best, content that is difficult to understand is either ignored or is fodder for a good joke.

To Sum Up

Why should you manage terminology? Here are some reasons:

• Speeds time-to-market
• Enhances efficiency
• Ensures consistency
• Increases sharing of knowledge
• Increases understanding
• Enforces legal compliance
• Lowers the cost of developing and editing content
• Lowers the cost of translation
• Enhances the perception of quality

I’m sure I’m missing some. What else would you add to this list?

The post Why Manage Terminology? appeared first on Content Rules, Inc..

Terminology management is a big topic; not one that I can write about in a single post. There are lots of things to talk about. Over the next few blogs posts, I’m going to delve into terminology management. Consider it a primer that will be metered out over the course of a few weeks. Here are the topics that I’m going to cover:

1. What does it mean to manage terminology?
2. Why would you want to manage terminology?
3. What are the ways to manage terminology?
4. How do you decide which terms to manage?
5. What are best practices for managing terminology?

If you have additional large topics that are not on this list, please feel free to let me know by leaving me a comment, or sending me an email or a tweet.

So, let’s begin.

What does it mean to manage terminology?

I did a search for “terminology management” in Google. Not surprisingly, the first ten results were about managing multilingual terminology or managing terminology from the standpoint of translation. Let me state for the record, terminology management is critical in translation.

That being said, in this series of posts, I am going to explore terminology management from a single-language, English-centric stance. Why? Because the importance of managing terminology is not just a translation/localization issue. There are very good reasons to spend time and money on managing terms at the content development level – long before the content ever reaches localization. We will need to keep this in mind as we go through the topics. I’m sure someone is going to complain that I “missed” all of the localization and translation points. Rest assured that I’m intentionally focusing on terminology management from a content development standpoint only.

So, I got nowhere trying to look up the definition of terminology management from a content development standpoint. Let’s craft one, then.

According to Mirriam-Webster, the definition of manage is:

1 : to handle or direct with a degree of skill: as to exercise executive, administrative, and supervisory direction of <manage a business>

2 : to work upon or try to alter for a purpose <manage the press> <manage stress>

According to the Oxford dictionary, manage means:

1 : to be in charge of (a company, establishment, or undertaking); administer; run:

2: to succeed in surviving or in attaining one’s aims, especially against heavy odds; cope:

I think all of these definitions are applicable to managing terminology, particularly succeeding in managing terms against heavy odds. For many of us, that’s certainly what terminology  management feels like!

According to Oxford, terminology is:

The body of terms used with a particular technical application in a subject of study, theory, profession, etc.

To manage terminology, then, means:

To use a degree of skill to administer, regulate, and control the use of particular words that are specific to a particular field.

Or in plain English, to manage terminology is:

To control how some words are used in content creation.

Do you have a definition of terminology management?

The post Let’s Talk Terminology appeared first on Content Rules, Inc..

There is a close-knit relationship between terminology and structure. So close, in fact, that many people completely overlook it. I’ve tried to explain this many times and, for some reason, I don’t think I have been able to make the point as clearly as it needs to be. So, in this post, I will try to tailor it for everyone.

Let’s imagine that you have taken your big, messy closest and built in one of those really nice closet organizers. You have some structure – empty of course – but structure for your clothes and accessories. That’s a great first step!

As you go shopping, you buy shirts, sweaters, jackets, socks, power undies, and so on. You start filling your structured closet with content and, because you took the time to set up structure, every item has a place. Items can be groups by type, season, color, really the categorizing of the contents is up to you. The main thing is that you have a system of organization. It important that the system makes sense, so that everyone who puts things into your closet (your housekeeper) and takes things out of your closet (your best friend) knows the structure and can follow it.

Next, we discussed reusing content. Reusable content is like having that one piece of clothing that is just perfect in all situations. The famous little black dress that can be worn over, and over, and over again in many different situations, and it always fits right in.

Your content management system is like your closet. Structured authoring methodologies, such as DITA, DocBook and so on, are like the shelves and drawers that you use to organize various pieces of content. Taxonomy is the system for organizing the chunks. Metadata and tags are the indicators for how to locate each type of content, to make your red shirts searchable, if you will. So far so good? If not, please go back and read these previous posts here and here, and then reread this section.

One of the reasons for structuring content is to increase the possibility of reuse. It’s certainly not the only reason and some folks would argue that reuse isn’t the most important reason. But, it is a reason why many companies move to structured authoring. For reuse to be possible, the content needs to be written in such a way that a chunk can be used in multiple locations.

Perhaps you will reuse content among a printed document, a web-based document, and an eBook. Or maybe you are writing installation instructions that can be shared among documentation, training, and the corporate knowledge base. Or perhaps you are describing how to install a particular piece of hardware and many different pieces of hardware could use the same basic instructions if you word it right. (Pick up the chassis, put it in the rack, tighten the screws, plug it in, power it on, watch the lights flash, done. Lather, rinse, repeat for the next type of chassis.)

An information asset, or final deliverable, contains a bunch of reusable content chunks.

This methodology works great in theory. It makes perfect sense; almost everyone can understand it. In practice, it is not so simple to achieve.

One of the biggest breakdowns I see when customers try to “build” an information asset from various chunks is the mismatch of the words each chunk contains. Sure, you can take all those pieces and create something from them. But, if there is no standard for the terms that are used in each chunk, you end up with a nicely built document that is very confusing.

Let’s try the analogy. You are getting married and have asked 7 different people to be your bridesmaids. You have told them each to wear a black dress. You are looking forward to taking wedding photos and expect all of the bridesmaids to show up in the exact same dress.  Lo and behold, your wedding day comes. Rather than have seven identical dresses, you end up with seven black dresses, but each one is unique. Your photos are a disaster because you wanted your wedding party to be uniform. You burst into tears.

You cannot expect seven different people to purchase the exact same dress if all you told them was to go get something black. In fact, you can pretty much guarantee that if all you said was the color, there is very little chance that the dresses will match.

Same with putting together content asset from disparate chunks. If you do not have very precise and enforced terminology, you will end up in tears. Or at least your reader will end up in tears, or worse, calling technical support for help.

Sometimes it boggles my mind when customers go through the incredible effort and expense of implementing a great CMS and creating strict content models, without paying any attention to terminology. If I call the box a chassis, and you call it a router, and someone else calls it a switch, and a fourth person calls it a device, and a fifth person calls it a box…and then we try to take the “reusable” writing from all of those people to create instructions, we end up with a big, well-organized, incomprehensible mess.

To make your chunks reusable among different final products, mixed with chunks from other content creators, you must decide on terminology in advance, and then enforce it in practice.

Otherwise, you could end up running from the altar.

The post Terminology is Like Your… appeared first on Content Rules, Inc..

A few months ago, we had an interesting discussion about structured content being like your closet. A few additional people wrote blog posts on the topic, too. One thing we all agreed on (I think?) is that structure provides a way for you to organize your content.

Now that we are pretty much in agreement on what structure is, let’s talk about the content that you put into the structure.

Content is Like Your Clothing

If structure is like your closet, then the things you put into the structure – namely the content itself – is like the clothes that you put into your closet. Shoes go HERE, pants go THERE, socks are in THIS drawer, and so on. It’s great to be able to sort your belongings. A place for every item. Every item in its place. I don’t know about you, but I have a lot of clothes (particularly shoes) in my closet. It is well-structured and everything has a place.

But not every garment goes with every other garment. For example, my bright red sweater probably won’t look good with my pink jeans. White socks with dress shoes are not an acceptable pairing in some circles.

Do you remember “Garanimals”? Garanimals were first created back in 1972 – and they still exist today (go figure!). Here is what our friends at Wikipedia say about Garanimals:

Garanimals is the name of a line of children’s clothing separates, started in 1972 by Garan Incorporated. Each item of clothing features a hang-tag depicting one of several anthropomorphic animal characters, also called Garanimals. The philosophy behind Garanimals is that by making it easy for children to choose coordinated outfits by themselves (by choosing pieces with matching hang-tags), children gain self-confidence.

Using the tags, children match up the pieces of clothing that go together. For example, you can wear a shirt with a lion tag and a pair of pants that has a lion tag. You know the clothes will match, because they have the same tag. All lion-tagged clothing is designed to be worn together.

Now, if that isn’t a terrific analogy for structured content, I don’t know what is. Gosh, they even use tags.

Reusable Content is Like Your LBD

What if I want an item that goes with just about everything? Something that I can wear over and over again, with any pair of shoes, any scarf, to any occasion  Many women turn to a little black dress (LBD) as the ubiquitous garment that can be worn everywhere, with everything.

Think of content that can be reused as that LBD in the closet. Reusable content is content that can “work” in a variety of content outputs. Beware:

• Just because you have a structured closet, does not mean that all of your clothing matches.
• Just because you have a structured authoring editor and a content management system, does not mean that all of your content matches either.

Recently, I was working with a customer on putting in a CMS and structured authoring tool. When it came time to discuss changing and actually rewriting the content, the customer was completely surprised. He said, “I thought that the tools would automatically take care of that stuff in my content.”  This is a well-educated person who has been in the technology field for many years. He did not understand that the structure is not the same thing as the content. And the structure cannot, by itself, automatically make the content reusable.

To make content reusable, you need to work with it. It needs to be written or rewritten with reuse in mind. For example:

• Very wordy content is harder to reuse. Why? Because sometimes all of those extra words are not appropriate in every context that you want to use this piece of content.
• Very specific content is harder to reuse. If you include specific product names, for example, and they are hard-coded into the content (rather than being variables), it makes it very difficult to use that content for other products.
• Poorly written content is harder to reuse. If I cannot understand your content in one setting, I’m surely not going to be able to understand it any better in three or four books/pages/and so on.
• Reusable content cannot rely on information that came “before” it or that comes “after” it, unless that information is included in the same chunk of content. You never know where a particular chunk is going to be used. Each chunk must stand on its own, containing all relevant information.
• Irrelevant information is harder to reuse. Same reason as wordy content. Sticking to the facts is very important if you want to reuse content.

Writing chunks of content for reuse can seem limiting, particularly in the beginning. And thinking everything in your document is unique and, therefore, cannot be reused defeats the purpose of using a structured authoring environment to begin with. You need to find the reusable content happy place – that spot where your content is skinny enough to be used in a variety of outputs, but detailed enough to actually say something meaningful. It takes time and effort to learn how to write in a structured way.

It also takes time to learn how to match your clothes.

The post Reusable Content is Like Your LBD appeared first on Content Rules, Inc..

Rapunzel is a well-known Grimm’s fairy tale that features a beautiful young woman named Rapunzel, who happens to have ridiculously long, blond hair. Rapunzel lives locked in a tower in the middle of the woods. The tower has a single room with a single window, and it has neither a door nor stairs.

Where am I going with all of this, you ask?  Well, I’ve noticed over the years that there is a trend in content development that is what I call the ivory tower syndrome. I know, I’m kind of mixing metaphors here, but bear with me. According to wordsmith.org, an ivory tower is “A place or state of privileged seclusion, disconnected from practical matters and harsh realities of life.”

The ivory tower syndrome in content development is the tendency of organizations to create content without first figuring out the needs of the person who is going to be consuming the information.

It happens all the time. And it has happened for as many years as I’ve been in the content creation world (no, you are not allowed to ask how many years). Time and time again, we create content from within our hallowed corporate towers, without first figuring out who the audience is and the purpose of the information we are creating for them.

If we don’t clearly define the characteristics of the content consumer first, there is simply no way we can be sure that the content we spend countless hours working on is going to be useful. It amazes me when I actually have to argue this point with customers. For some reason, companies tend to think they automagically know their users and what those users need to do their jobs. This happens with content created for internal consumption and content intended for people outside the company. The result is an awful lot of expensive content that either misses the point, is written at a level the user cannot understand, or contains all kinds of insignificant factoids that are what I call “cocktail party fodder.”

So, before you start, be sure that you are very clear on these things:

Who is your content consumer?

• How much background knowledge do they have on your topic?
• Exactly what do you expect them to know before consuming your content?
• Where did they get that background information?
• What is your consumer’s reading level? It is lower than you think (trust me). 

From your content consumer’s point of view, what is the purpose of your content?

• Accomplish a task
• Make a buying decision
• Make some other type of decision
• Develop a context for accomplishing a task or making a decision

How will your content be consumed?

• Via the internet
• Via a cellular network
• Using a computer
• Using a smartphone
• Using a tablet
• Using a feature phone
• Reading from paper in the middle of the desert

How will you gauge the success of your content?

• Sell more widgets
• Field fewer support questions
• Save more lives

Once you have this information, you can then begin planning your content. If you are missing any of these answers, you run a great risk of:

• Creating the wrong content
• Inadvertently leaving out critical information
• Providing meaningless information
• Wasting your consumer’s time
• Creating inaccessible content
• Providing incomprehensible information

All of these things, and more, happen when we create content within an ivory tower.

Sadly, most companies won’t provide the funds or the time to do proper audience discovery before writing projects begin. It’s almost as if they are drinking their own Kool-Aid, thinking that they “already know” what their customers need, without ever asking them. How often have we seen products fail because companies went ahead and shipped something  that no one wanted? Well, content projects fail even more frequently.

So, what’s a content creator to do? Well, even if you cannot get funding and time to create a full suite of personas, there are still things you can do to get a closer idea of what your content consumer needs.

Talk to people at your company. I know, people at your company are living in the same tower as you, but they still have interesting information that you can gather. For example, ask the product manager questions about what the customer will do with the product. Ask the marketing manager about who they are marketing to, what assumptions they are making (hopefully, they will have an answer). Ask the engineering manager basic questions about the kind of information the user of the product is expected to understand before using the product. Ask the same question to the support organizations. By the way, this works equally well for services.

Go out online and look at your competition. Who else has a similar product or service? What type of information do they provide? Can you get any information about their intended content consumer? 

Check user groups and other community boards. Find out if customers are actually getting the content they need in the forms they need it from your company and from your competitors. You can also ask your support organization if there are complaints or compliments about similar content.

Most of all, do not be afraid to ask the question, “Why?” So often, I have asked “why” and the response has been, “Gee, I don’t know.” If you get a gee-I-don’t-know response, this is a loud danger signal that you might be embarking on a content creation fantasy trip.

The post Wherefore the User in Our Content? appeared first on Content Rules, Inc..

During my “off hours,” one of my favorite hobbies is knitting. Years ago, when my teenagers were babies, I used to knit a lot. Then, I kinda got out of practice. One day, I was walking by a yarn shop and I thought, “Yeah, I want to try knitting again!”  So I went in and proceeded to spend quite a bit of money. I bought yarn and markers, new needles and more yarn, and even a pattern book.

Armed with my new goodies, I went home and sat down to knit. And then I realized that I no longer knew how. I mean, the basic stuff I remembered – like riding a bike. But I couldn’t remember some of the more intricate stitches. I also couldn’t remember how to join yarn on circular needles, which is critical if you want to make a hat.

So, I decided to go out to the internet where knowledge of everything on the planet is readily shared. I Googled a few stitches and techniques. Among the results were an abundance of YouTube videos. I know what you are thinking – “Well, DUH!” But let’s remember, when my 20-year old was a baby, we barely had the internet, never mind YouTube.

Undaunted, I decided to go directly to YouTube to do all of my searching there. And I found tons and tons of knitting videos. Who knew?! And I started watching many of them. And then, I got really annoyed.

Why? Well, most of the videos featured a woman (usually) holding needles and yarn, and talking. That’s fine. However, there was always too much talking. Talking in the beginning about what she was going to tell us (all the while petting the yarn which was also annoying), talking during each and every stitch, regardless of whether or not it was necessary, and then talking at the end.

Who has that kind of time? This is my hobby! I gotta hurry up before my free time is over!

Then it came to me. Rather than actually keeping the sound on, I decided to mute. And then, I decided to skip all the yarn petting and go straight to the 15 seconds of valuable content. I didn’t need to hear about the stitch. All I needed was to see the stitch being created. A few times in a row worked best. As the consumer of the video, I only needed to see the teeniest part of the footage. Just show me what I need. Now.

Later, as I was knitting, I started thinking about that experience and comparing it to the kinds of videos I see so many of my customers producing today. So often, particularly in training videos, we provide so much background, so much context, that we literally bore our watcher to death. If all I need to see is how to lift the chassis, put it into the rack, and turn the screws, well, gosh – I don’t need to hear all about the kind of chassis it is, why it is the best chassis in the world, and all of the features of the product. That information is important in certain a context – just like explaining what kind of yarn to use for a situation is important in a certain context – but if I really just want to see how to lift, insert, and turn the screws, well, just show me THAT. How much happier would I be if I could get to the exact information I want, without the fluff? Answer: Much happier.

Here is an example that I found on YouTube that shows a little bit about what I mean:

Personally, I think that the action is way too fast. If they slowed it down, they might not need the subtitles at all. Also, I hate the music for this video. Three minutes of total annoyance. I’d definitely have to mute if I needed to watch until the end.

Then I started thinking about the value of words. Words are my life. I spend almost every waking hour involved with words in one way or another. Some days, I go from room to room, picking up, using, and putting down different pairs of glasses along the way. I always seem to be reading something.

But for completely manual tasks, like knitting, or racking, all I really need is the visual. The words might be nice if they actually add something. If the visual is super clear, super simple, super easy to see, I might not need to read or listen at all.

A few years ago, we worked on an interesting project for a hardware company. They wanted a quick start guide with only pictures. No words. They didn’t think it was necessary to have words and they didn’t want to translate the content either. It was an interesting challenge and we succeeded.

Of course, video is a much better medium for wordless instruction. Why, then, do so many customers insist on using words along with the video? I suppose it is an expectation. I have never been asked to create a completely wordless video. But it is a compelling idea. If I can show you what to do and you can repeat it without words, imagine how accessible that information is to everyone around the world? Think about how much money you could save on translation and localization?

Obviously, there is a small subset of content that can be created using the “wordless video” paradigm. But where it will work, I think it will really work well. The actions are a universal language.

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According to my pals at Mirriam-Webster, a pivot is the central point, pin, or shaft on which a mechanism turns or oscillates. Similarly, a pivot language is the central language that is used to create all translations. For example, rather than translating content from U.S. English to French, and then from French to Japanese, and then Japanese to Russian, most translations stem from the same (pivot) language.

If U.S. English is your pivot, then you’d have U.S. English to French, U.S. English to Japanese, U.S. English to Russian, and so on. Essentially, all of your translated languages would pivot on U.S. English.

Usually, but not always, the pivot language is also the source language. The source language is the language used by the writer to create the original content. For example, if your source language is German, you might use German as your pivot language. This would create German to French, German to Korean, German to Swahili, etc.

Sometimes, though, your source language is first translated and the resulting translation is used as the pivot for all of the additional languages. For example, your writers create content in German. The German is translated to U.K. English. And the additional translations are based on U.K. English.

Important Factors to Consider

When you choose your pivot language, it is important to remember the four S’s.

Standard.

In order for your translations to be meaningful, your pivot language should not contain idioms, jargon, new/hip ways of saying things, and so on. Your pivot language needs to be the standard version of whatever language you choose.

You would be amazed (or maybe you wouldn’t) at how important standardizing your pivot language has become. I have seen new, young, fresh, and hip companies that use an extremely familiar tone in their content. Sometimes, the tone is downright cheeky. (You see, cheeky is not translatable…) In an effort to be friendly and familiar with the customer, these companies create content that represents a conversation, rather than standard language.

As we all know by now, this type of language can be very difficult to understand if you have English as a second language. It can also be difficult, if not impossible, to translate. So, when you consider your pivot language, make sure you standardize it first.

Simple.

All of your content should be simple and easy to understand. Your pivot language should be simple so that your translations are accurate.

Short.

Don’t use 42 words when 15 will suffice. The key to a successful and cost-effective translation is minimize your word count – both on a sentence-level and overall. The fewer the words, the lower the cost. The fewer the words, the easier to understand.

Same.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again (and again). Say the same thing, the same way, every time you say it. Enuff said.

 What’s a Hip Company to Do?

I know what you are thinking. “How can I maintain my significant level of hipness if I am saddled with a boring, standard, source language?” The answer is…well… maybe you can’t. It might not be possible to retain your cheeky, conversational tone AND use that language to pivot. Companies who have tried it have war wounds from the experience.

One thing to consider is using the standard language as the pivot, and treating your colloquial version as an additional translation. Sure, this means you are maintaining two versions of the source language. But, if you are translating into 18, 24, or 72 languages, you are much better off maintaining “colloquial” as a translation, than trying to create translations based on content that isn’t translatable to begin with.

What About That Stuff I Don’t Translate?

In the life of many translated websites, there is a certain amount of content that is never touched. In other words, many companies translate the first three levels “down” of their website (for example) and then the rest of the pages do not get translated. Or, they translate the webpages, but not the downloadable .PDF files. You get what I mean.

Usually, the reader is directed back to the pivot or source language for the rest of the content. If the rest of the content is colloquial and non-standard, you are really doing that international person a disservice. It is difficult enough to go from a native language to a non-native language. Going from a native language to a colloquial version of a non-native language can be downright frustrating.  

Make sure that your “return” language, presumably the pivot, follows our four “S’s”, above.

Food for Thought

One of my brilliant customers gave me a terrific idea. He decided that the pivot language for his content would be U.K. English, rather than U.S. English. Why? His explanation is that most of his customers who have English as a second language are accustomed to U.K. English, not U.S. English. For example, the European community, some African nations, island nations, and so on. For these readers, U.K. English is much easier to understand than U.S. English. So, this customer pivots on U.K. English, and second-tier content that does not get translated is presented in standard, simple, short, and similar U.K. English sentences. U.S. English? It’s just another language to maintain.

I love it when my customers teach me something new.

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