Aside from its clean cut appearance, the first thing you’ll notice in the store is that there are lots of fully functional demo computers for you to try and enough sales people to assist everyone (though they are not pushy at all). Devices are laid out on tables, almost like little work centers where you can visualize what it might be like sitting around a table with your colleagues or co-workers on your Macs, while at the same time providing you with lots of personal space.

The best aspect though, is that they have you taken care of during the entire decision making process and despite their product’s absurd price tags, they ensure that you leave feeling good about your purchase. One aspect I particularly liked was the in-store setup. As soon as you decide to purchase, the product is brought directly to you in the store and the sales person will show you how to use it and even help you do some basic setup. And for $100, you can get a migration service in which you can visit the store as many times as you like during the subscription period and they will personally assist you with all of your questions, software migrations and issues. More importantly, they’ve made the migration to their product very easy.

Service wise, they aim to have a 24 hour turn around time for those, as the sales clerk said, “can’t live without their computer”. Contrast that to your local discount store which usually has at least a week’s worth of backlog.

All of this reminded me of the good old days back in the 80’s when there was a family owned computer store on every street corner. In those days, computer stores understood that good customer experience began before the product was purchased and continued for the lifetime of the product and beyond.

So when thinking about your customers, try to think about the user experience you want to impart on them as a holistic process. Try to think about what you can do for them, before, during and after the sale. Oh and when you have a chance, make a visit to an Apple store and be inspired!

Text boxes – Word features a text box object which can be embedded into your documents. The big advantage to a text box is the vast number of visual elements and the ability to wrap text around it in various ways (just like with pictures and other objects). While text boxes are a very common method for boxing text, many writers tend to choose the wrong text wrapping method because they can’t get the desired result in Word ie: they often end up choosing to place the object “in front of” text, which means the box must be manually moved if the underlying text is moved around.

Tables – Another common technique, often used by technical writers, is to create a table consisting of one cell. Once created, you can then customize the table by specifying a background color, border style and other options like alignment. One advantage of the table is that it uses Word’s standard layout tools like the ruler and margin adjusters—controls which you are already familiar with. The downside is that a table doesn’t always behave as it should such as when splitting across pages (such problems often occur when tracking changes), lacks some visual elements like rounded corners and does not have text wrapping controls.

Character styles – This method is used less frequently and involves creating a character style with borders and shading configured via the character style dialog box. The upside to this approach is that boxing text comes for free (once the style has been set up) by simply selecting the configured character style. The downside to this approach is that the box will split each time you modify the indentation settings on a new paragraph (the work around is to modify the indentation before entering multiple paragraphs). Also, if a user isn’t aware that character styles can have border definitions (and thus be used for boxing text), they may not know how to make adjustments or turn off the “box”.

PDF files contain descriptions for a wide variety of document primitives such as text, fonts and graphics. However some industries have very specific document requirements for which the standard PDF format is too board. For example, many companies involved in archiving information, require a document format which is completely self contained with no reliance an external entities such as fonts or hyperlinks to websites. As such the ISO has defined a number of tightly controlled PDF specifications which meet the needs of a particular industry by enforcing certain requirements and restrictions.

Each of these specifications (known as a subset) is named “PDF” followed by a “/” character and a letter (or letters) which abbreviate the intended purpose of the subset (ie: PDF/A). Many of the subsets also have multiple versions of their specification which support different requirements since these subsets are constantly evolving (ie: PDF/A-1A and PDF/A-1B). Note though that all PDF files regardless of their specification subset, always have the .pdf filename extension, so you will need to use a tool like Acrobat to determine which specification they fall under.

PDF/E – used in engineering related documentation, this format is designed to handle complex data including 3D, while producing accurate printings of drawings. This format is also based on version 1.6 of the standard PDF file specification. However there appears to be less information currently available on the web about this subset vs other subsets.

PDF/X – facilitates the exchange of graphical information for the purposes of printing. This subset includes requirements for CMYK coloring, embedded fonts, regional definitions for the printable area and bleed. Prohibited items include scripts, interactive fields, audio and video.

PDF/A – used for archiving of information which must be preserved and reproducible without reliance on external resources. PDF/A files therefore contain everything required to open the file (ie: embedded fonts) and forbid dependencies on external resources (ie: hyperlinks). Other restrictions include the prevention of transparency, audio, video, executable scripts, device dependant coloring etc. PDF/A file sizes tend to be larger than standard PDF files because they contain extra resources in order to be self contained. PDF/A files are commonly used in the legal industry as the preferred “archive” format.

PDF/VT – optimized for variable data printing aka “VDP” (the ability to dynamically change content while printing such as when performing a mail merge). PDF/VT files include specially encapsulated entity groups which optimize the processing of both graphics and text. This is useful for companies which require high volume transactional output printing capabilities to produce large numbers of customized prints (ie: billing or marketing materials).

PDF/UA – enables “universal access” by ensuring that the content can be accessed on user assistance devices (ie: devices used by the blind). The main features of PDF/UA files are tags which can be interpreted by special software to provide alternative access to certain parts of the document. For example, tags can indicate that a section should be zoomed in or read to the user through a text audio interpreter.

Tool window or regular window: tool windows are dialog windows with an extra small caption bar. They are intended to be modeless, often with the ability to hover or dock. However, many programmers use them for modal dialog boxes. The first problem with this is that most users already associate the small caption bar with a hovering window. Secondly, tool windows commonly contain the “x” button allowing the user to close the window. When used as a dialog box, programmers often overlook the meaning of this “x” button—does it mean cancel or commit? So avoid tool windows for modal dialog boxes and hide the x button if you’re not going to handle its logic.

Resizable or not: a standard dialog box starts out as a standard window ie: it contains a caption bar, buttons for minimize, maximum and close, as well as resize handles around the perimeter. However, many developers forget to give these details attention. In practive this usually results in dialog boxes which should be fixed in size, but are fully resizeable by the user. While this is not the end of the world, it gives the user the impression that little care has been applied to the user interface. Therefore we recommend that you only allow resize functionality, if the controls on the dialog will also resize accordingly. The more serious issue though is the “close button”. Like the tool window, you must stop and consider what it means to click on close – is it cancel or commit? The good news is that removing these controls requires only a few clicks of the mouse in most development environments.

Centering the window: in most development environments, windows are set to show up at some random location unless otherwise specified. Your choices then are: specify x,y coordinates, have the windowed centered on screen or have it centered relative to your application’s main window. Our preference is choice number three because you don’t know where the user has placed the application onscreen. By having the dialog box show up right on top of the application, you make it easier for the user to find. This is especially important for when there are multiple monitors attached; if the dialog shows up on a different monitor this can make it very hard to find.

Keeping the question positive: if your dialog box presents a question to the user, keep the message simple and keep it positive to correspond to the yes/no or ok/cancel buttons. Ie: A message like “Are you sure you don’t want to disable the feature?” leads to confusion over whether the user should accept or cancel the dialog. For more information on good error message design see the following page (ironically from Microsoft): http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa511267.aspx

Question mark feature: many dialogs feature a button with a “question mark” on it which when clicked will display a help file. If you really want to impress your users, the button should not only open help, but should take them to the specific help page for that dialog box. Even better, clicking the question mark button in some dialogs will allow you to then click on a specific control and provide context sensitive popup help specific to that control. In either case, this is a great way to provide convenient help to your user.

Yes/No vs Ok/Cancel: generally speaking you should use yes/no for dialogs which pose a confirmation question of some sort such as “Are you sure you want to stop the operation?”. On the other hand you should use ok/cancel for dialogs in which the user performs some action Ie: a dialog box containing a series of user input fields. However the preference is to replace “Ok” with the specific action where possible ie: on dialogs where the user enters database fields, you might use “Commit” instead of “Ok”.

In order to develop an effective FAQ section you must approach it from your user’s/customer’s perspective. This requires a fundamental understanding of the user’s problems and issues, something you should be striving for regardless of whether or not you have an FAQ section. In our recent article on Thinking about your customers/users in everything you do, I described my recent, less than impressive gas station experience. In particular I noted how an apparently “frozen” gas pump left me wondering what state the device was in. If one were to present a series of FAQ’s at that pump, I would expect an answer about that frozen pump to be at the top of the list.

This leads to another point on how many items you should have in an FAQ. As a rule of thumb, try to create as few items as possible given the domain of problems your user might encounter. If you require a ton of questions and answers then you should have a good search engine in place with a rich set of content. But in terms of a standalone FAQ page, we’ve found that 15-20 FAQ’s per “set” is about the maximum range that one is willing to scan through before resorting to the search box. You can have multiple sets each corresponding to some sort of category, but again keep the number of sets as small as possible.

The order of items is another consideration. If you have a good grasp of your customer’s user experience, then you should know which questions come up the most, and order them accordingly. Keep each question as short and concise as possible to help users quickly scan for keywords.

Don’t rely on your FAQ as the “catch all” page. There is nothing worse than when a customer has a very specific or rare problem and the website or support person points them to the FAQ page. Such problems should be embraced at the start as an issue requiring greater attention. If the solution just happens to be on the FAQ page great, but this is seldom the case for more severe issues and questions. Avoid having your support staff’s first troubleshooting step be to ask if the user has read the FAQ page. Many people avoid the FAQ page altogether because they know from experience that there is a low probability it answers their question. More generally, don’t assume that the FAQ page is where the user has started (or even wants to start) the troubleshooting process.

As a final note, keep in mind that a well thought out FAQ sends a strong message to your user that you have thought about their customer experience. Like your product, its documentation, and thoughtful marketing, strong support will lead to greater customer loyalty.

Laptop size: for travelling you will definitely want a smaller laptop. Aside from the weight and bulkiness of having to lug it around with other luggage, a smaller size will also enable you to store it in most safes provided in hotel rooms. For example, I found my 16.5” laptop fit perfectly into all of the mini closet safes I came across. Alternatively you may want to hide the unit under a bed or elsewhere when you are away, so a slim unit will fit nicely under low profile beds and in other tight spaces.

Travel Bags: I found that when shopping for a laptop bag, the majority of bags available seemed to be for 16” laptops. Luckily at 16.5” my laptop fits all of these bags nicely. Another consideration is to look for a bag which has a slot along the back, enabling it to be slid over the handle rail extensions of a rolling suite case. I found this unexpected feature to be a life saver, since I didn’t have to try and carry this bag whilst pulling my heavy suitcase. In terms for material, leather bags tend to add additional weight and don’t have any “give” when you stuff them with the inevitable “extras” like snacks for the commute. So look for a cloth based bag with strong handles and straps. Also look for a bag with lots of little compartments to stick USB keys and other accessories like the power cord, mouse and those aforementioned “extras”.

Airplanes: every time I step on a plane, the seating configuration seems to have gotten smaller. And just when you finally settle in and accept your limited personal space, the person in front of you reclines their seat to eliminate those final precious inches. My hope was to work on my laptop while flying but the seat in front of me was fully reclined the whole flight. As such I was only able to unfold the display of my 16.5” laptop to about 60 degrees. I was able to gain a degree or two by sitting the unit on my lap, but even so I was forced to look downwards toward the unit which in turn forced me to strain my neck forward. Bottom line – unless you have a really small laptop, don’t expect to be using it in economy class; there’s a reason why they call the section at the front of the plane “business class”. One other point about airplanes – if you require a power outlet be sure to research ahead of time as each airline has different configurations. One helpful resource is http://www.seatguru.com which lists the seating configuration and available amenities like power outlets for most major airlines.

Power savings: when running on a battery you want to minimize power consumption. Turn off everything you can including the wireless network hardware when not in use. Also reduce the brightness and check your unit’s power plan settings to see what else you may be able to turn off or adjust.

Mice: many hotel rooms and apartments go for the contemporary look now, which often involves a lot of glass. As such many of these places provide you with a glass table, which prevents optical mice from working. So be sure to pack a mouse pad or some other hard flat surface for your mouse. Something thin, light and flexible like a mouse pad will be the easiest to transport.

Keyboards: I’ll start by saying that I dislike almost all of today’s keyboards – both desktop and laptop. What ever happened to the good ‘ol basic 104 key keyboard? When choosing a laptop (or any computer) be sure to try out the keyboard and make sure you’re comfortable with it. In particular watch out for small keys which are hard to press (usually function and cursor keys), keyboard layouts which don’t match the standard, and lots of fancy keys with additional functionality which can be difficult to work with. Ie: there was a keyboard I tried whereby the function keys could also have secondary functions. This was fine, but the brilliant person who designed it decided that the secondary functions should be primary, so every time you start the computer you would have to press a button enable the normal functionality of these keys.

Batteries: many laptop manufactures offer batteries with additional charge life. For my unit I have a special battery which is supposed to last about 4-5 hours. The downside is that the unit protrudes from the bottom and is twice the weight of the standard battery. This makes it harder to place the unit into my bag, especially when I’m squeezed into a tight space like an airplane seat. These aren’t really problems per se, but will make general transportation of the unit more awkward.

Sharing: if you have coworkers or someone you need to share a laptop with, it’s beneficial if you both have the same brand and series of laptops. That way when traveling, you can share accessories such as batteries and power cords. It will also make it easier for everyone to find their way around the laptop’s keyboard.

For more tips, see our past article on 5 usability issues to look for in a laptop.

-.mht/mhtml files – short for MIME html, this handy format saves an html file and its dependency files (such as images), into a single html archive file. In other words you can now save a webpage without worrying about which dependency files you might have missed. Best of all this file type can be opened in common applications like Internet Explorer, Word and Firefox. See (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MHTML for more). Note: if you’re using IE8, you may have to install a security update, as we found IE8 would often fail to save these file types without the update.

-.odt — short for OpenDocument text Document, this is an open standard, xml based format used in both freeware and proprietary word processors. In fact there is a whole collection of .od* extensions/file formats for different application types (ie: .ods for spreadsheets). The format is most notably used by the OpenOffice software suite, though MS Office applications can open and save .od* files (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument).

-.ps/.eps-short for Post Script/Extended Post Script, these files contain a programming language (or script) which describes how to reproduce an image on a device such as a printer. While you probably won’t come across these files much, it’s important to note their historical importance. Originally developed in the 1980’s, they were created for the desktop publishing market so that images and text could be properly reproduced by printers at the time. Today you will likely work with one of their descendants – the PDF or “portable document format” file (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PostScript and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encapsulated_PostScript). While we take postscript for granted today, these links provide a great read as to how today’s modern, powerful desktop tools evolved.

.rtf – you’ve probably seen these files around, but often wondered why the user didn’t just save them as a regular Word .doc file. Short for Rich Text Format, RTF files were introduced in 1987 by Microsoft as a cross platform document format. Behind the scenes, .rtf files are raw ASCII and contain commands which describe the document data. An RTF compatible program then interprets these commands and reproduces the document on screen accordingly. RTFs are slowly being phased out by Microsoft in favour of their more advanced (and proprietary) Word format (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Text_Format).

For more information about these and other file extensions check out http://www.fileinfo.com/. This website has descriptions for thousands for extensions and is a great resource for when some oddball file extension comes through your email.

-Alt+Printscreen–takes a screenshot of the currently focused window. Note if you’re trying to take a screen grab of a video, you may need to first turn off hardware acceleration, because video often by passes the regular screen buffer.

-Ctrl+Printscreen–takes a screenshot of the entire screen. This is particularly useful for when you need to take a screenshot of a dropdown menu, whereby pressing Alt + Printscreen would normally cause that menu to hide. Of course you will need to crop the image afterwards.

-Ctrl+Escape–display/hide the Windows start menu.

-Ctrl+Tab–this is commonly used in multi-document applications like older versions of Word, to jump between documents. However this does not apply to newer versions of Word, so you will need to try this combo in a given application to see what effect it has.

-Alt+Tab or Windows+tab–allows you to jump between currently running applications. The latter option is a relatively new feature of Windows which shows a 3D view of all running applications. However it requires a fairly up-to-date keyboard with a Windows key. Note that also holding down shift with either of these combos will cycle backwards through the list of applications.

-Alt+Ascii Character Code–used in text/word processors, holding down alt and entering an ascii code will display the corresponding character. Ie: Alt + 0151 will display an em-dash. Unfortunately for some commonly used characters such as the em-dash, this is the only way to create these characters.

-Ctrl+S, O, P, N–from left to right these will typically save, open, print or create a new document.

-Ctrl+A, X, C–from left to right these will typically select all, cut and copy document information.

-Ctrl+Z/Ctrl+Alt+Z–these will typically undo and redo an operation. Note that in some cases the latter is accomplished with Ctrl+Y.

This macro, which had been running perfectly for the last 10 years on the old machine, now failed when trying to make database calls into Microsoft’s DAO 3.5 library, despite the fact that my investigation revealed the correct library files were installed and referenced by the macro.

The first DAO function to fail was OpenDatabase() which resulted in an “Out of memory” message. With nothing more to go on than this descriptive message, I went down the path of trying to figure out why the database engine was running out of memory. This led me astray through all sorts of Google search results — everything from verifying the amount of free ram available to checking buffer sizes in places I’d never heard of. After many frustrating hours, I finally discovered on some obscure website that in fact there was no memory problem. Instead, the website said that a new update pack was required since this new computer had a new service pack installed. Problem solved. Time to celebrate.

The celebration was short lived when I then ran into a second problem. A call to OpenRecordset() was now failing with a message telling me that the database was read-only. Again with nothing more than the “informative” error message, I began the long, painful journey into the world of Google searches.

Since the query being passed to OpenRecordset() was only selecting data and not modifying it, I thought that maybe the update now required that I specify a read-only query. No luck. However, hours later I just happened to stumble across an article on MSDN which said to double check the registry entry for the type of database I was trying to open (which was a text file); more specifically to ensure that the file extension I was trying to open was registered for the database type. One quick look into the registry and sure enough my custom file extension was missing. Problem solved. But I never had to do either of these steps when using this library 10 years ago.

So there are some lessons to be learned from Microsoft’s blunder. The most obvious is that Microsoft should have provided proper error messages. In the latter case for example, it should have been possible to pass a message to the user saying “Unknown file extension, check registry entry….” instead of leading the user astray with a “Database is read-only” message, regardless of how many layers and components were involved.

The lesson here: ensure errors are being handled properly in all cases and are propagated to the highest level (in this case the error message box presented to the user). If this is not possible, at the very least provide documentation explaining the possible causes and make that documentation easily accessible. I eventually found the solution, but Microsoft could have easily provided a help matrix of causes and solutions. And just as importantly they could have provided this in the VBA help file.

Another lesson is that if there are multiple components and updates required which could lead to the infamous “DLL hell”, ensure that these are well documented. In the first case cited above, I would never have gotten the macro working if I hadn’t stumbled across that obscure website. Again a help matrix of some sort listing versions, components etc, could have saved hours of time.

In closing, I hope this article and the two examples provided will inspire you to think about the user experience of your API in a new way.

If you or your company is involved in any sort of documentation, technical writing or technical editing, an STC membership will provide you with the latest information about tools and communication techniques. You will have access to courses, downloadable articles and even discounts on software from time to time. The price of membership is reasonable, and many corporations will pick up the tab.

STC seminars are a great way to meet others involved with technical communications in your area. You can build valuable contacts and learn what tools and techniques are being used in other local companies.

So, technical writer or not, the STC can be a valuable resource for all information workers.