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Description: Promotions of various aspects of a product or service. Often appears inside the front or back covers of a publication, or on the screens displayed by an application when users start or install it.
Situations in Which User Consult this Type of Communication Product:
Users do not consult this type of information; they receive it while performing other activities.What Users Expect in this Type of Communication Product:
Writing Style:
Communication Medium Used: Online and print
Example: Messages about a product as you install it on your hard drive.
Description: Ceremonies and observances intended to build morale. In some cases, observances may recognize participants for past achievements. In other cases, observances build a positive attitude among new users. A celebration may be as simple as a ribbon or plaque to acknowledge a certain achievement or as elaborate as a party.
Situations in Which User Consult this Type of Communication Product: When users’ feelings play a key role in the acceptance of new products, policies, procedures, or ideas and when many of those users can be gathered in a single place at a single time.
What Users Expect in this Type of Communication Product:
Communication Style:
Communication Medium Used: Live with follow-up by e-mail or newsletter.
Description: Online tools that assist users with cognitive (intellectual) tasks. Examples of coaches include:
Situations in Which User Consult this Type of Communication Product: The user must make a decision and wants the access to expert advice or the organization feels that the advice of experts can be coded into a program so that workers with less experience can make decisions.
Users are often in the midst of making the decision when they consult the coach, so they have little time for extensive "teaching" as the system coaches them.
What Users Expect in this Type of Communication Product: Partial or full assistance with the decision. Prompting with scripts to be read when appropriate.
Writing Style:
Communication Medium Used: Online
Examples:
Description: Motivational tool intended to build interest or attention to a subject. For example, an organization might run a contest that rewards a department for reaching certain levels of safety or for levels of usage for a new computer system.
Situations in Which User Consult this Type of Communication Product: When provided with a meaningful incentive.
What Users Expect in this Type of Communication Product:
Writing Style:
Communication Medium Used: Print for instructions and notification, other media as appropriate to promote the contest.
Description: Instructions that tell users how to perform a task and that are displayed by the system one step at a time and that might visually resemble a cue card.
Situations in Which User Consult this Type of Communication Product:
When they are not familiar with a procedure but want to learn it, such as the first times a user has performed a given procedure or the first time the user has performed procedure after a long period of time.What Users Expect in this Type of Communication Product:
Writing Style:
Communication Medium Used: Online
Description: A trial version of a product that includes a scaled-down version of its features and functions and that provides users with a "tour" of the product. The tour may be "narrated" or may be self-running. Usually, demos provide users with an opportunity to try certain aspects of a product.
Situations in Which User Consult this Type of Communication Product:
What Users Expect in this Type of Communication Product:
Writing Style:
Communication Medium Used: Online, live.
Example: Visit Hello Brain and click on Quick Tour.
Description: Learning experiences that replicates the central characteristics of complex situations (that’s the simulation) and that let users experience the consequences of decisions made in that situation (the gaming aspect). Examples of gaming-simulations include:
Situations in Which User Consult this Type of Communication Product:
What Users Expect in this Type of Communication Product:
Writing Style:
Communication Medium Used: Online, live.
Example: Sim City.
Description: a special type of user’s guide for software that is available to users online as they use software applications.
Situations in Which User Consult this Type of Communication Product:
Users consult help in these types of instances:
What Users Expect in this Type of Communication Product:
To find information in help, users consult:
Ideally, when users display instructions for performing a task, those instructions should be visible to users as they perform the task. This is called stay-on-top help because the text "stays on top" of the screen when users perform the task.
Writing Style: Much like that of a user’s guide. Because the information is displayed online, however, technical communicators should make generous use of visuals. This might be difficult, however, because many organizations are restricting the use of visuals in help to limit the size of help files.
Communication Medium Used: Online
Example: Click on Help in any Windows or Mac application.
Description: A technical communication product intended to give users a brief refresher of a training module on the job. Job aids also go by the name quick references. Examples include:
Situations in Which User Consult this Type of Communication Product:
They might locate the job aid or, in many instances, find the job aid already available.
What Users Expect in this Type of Communication Product: to contain cryptic, but meaningful, reminders.
Writing Style: Terse, almost to the point of seeming incomplete. The physical design of job aids is usually imaginative, ranging from pocket-size cards that users can carry with them anywhere and mouse pads that have key messages written on them and that users can see any time they sit by their computer to audiotapes that users can play in their car on the way to work.
Communication Medium Used: Print, online, live, audio.
Example: See the posters for making sandwiches in fast food restaurants.
Description: contains a collection of articles and provides ongoing communication with a target group. For example, a product newsletter provides ongoing contact with the customers who have already purchased a product. An employee newsletter provides ongoing contact with the employees in a department or within an entire organization.
Situations in Which User Consult this Type of Communication Product: Users usually receive newsletters when the receive their mail; they might skim the newsletter at that time and, if they any interesting articles, read those at a later time.
Generally, users read in depth those articles that help them address an immediate need or provide them with a much needed skill.
What Users Expect in this Type of Communication Product: Varies, depending on the nature of the newsletter.
For all newsletters, users expect regular placement of certain information in each issue of a newsletter. For example, one financial newsletter always publishes a table with current exchange rates on the next to last page. Users who want this information immediately turn to it.
Writing Style: varies, depending on the purpose of the article. In general, technical communicators use a persuasive, informative style and write in the second person.
Communication Medium Used: Printed or online.
Examples:
Description: An encylopedic listing of all major topics on a particular subject. A telephone directory reference. So is the Physician’s Desk Reference, as are the programming references provided with software. Programming references list all of the commands that programmers can use to create their own applications using that software.
Situations in Which User Consult this Type of Communication Product:
To look up specific piece of information. The subject might be broad, such as all of the commands used for copying information or all the medications used to treat influenza. The subject might be tightly defined, such as the use of global characters with the DOS command, diskcopy, or the side effects of a certain influenza vaccine on patients with pacemakers. Users generally do not read references in their entirety.What Users Expect in this Type of Communication Product:
In addition, users have specific expectations for certain types of references. For example, users expect programming references to include a description of the command, a diagram showing the syntax¾
structure¾ of the command, a description of each parameter with the command and the options available for each parameter, an comprehensive discussion of considerations for use, and examples of commands that handle particular situations.Writing Style: direct, explanatory, and terse. In fact, references often use sentence fragments and lists to present information. They generally do not give step-by-step procedures; communicators expect users to integrate the information and determine for themselves how to use it. Communicators expect users of most technical references to have a certain level of technical expertise and use technical terminology. However, because many users might not be familiar with the terms, communicators also provide definitions of the terms, at the least, within a sentence and, at the most, in a glossary.
Communication Medium Used: Print, online.
Examples:
Description: a special type of instruction manual that tells trained service representatives how to repair a piece of equipment or how to resolve a problem with software. Service representatives usually receive training in how to use troubleshooting procedures. The service guide for a computer is an example of a service guide. The repair manual for a washing machine is also an example of a troubleshooting procedure.
Situations in Which User Consult this Type of Communication Product: are usually working in challenging circumstances. Their clients have usually tried, without success, to resolve the problem on their own. The broken equipment or the non-functioning software usually brings business to a standstill, and they often pay for the service representative’s time, so the clients of the service representative are anxious for the service representative to resolve the problem as quickly as possible.
What Users Expect in this Type of Communication Product:
Service representatives generally expect to receive training in using troubleshooting procedures. Many such communication products use unique formats that are not, on first glance, intuitive, but have proven extremely effective with their users. To make most effective use of this training, many organizations follow a standard format for all troubleshooting procedures.
Writing Style: directive writing style that extensively uses technical terminology.
Communication Medium Used: Print, online, live, audio.
Description: Groups of people facing a similar challenge and who benefit from sharing individual problems. Sometimes are self-run, other times are led by an outside facilitator.
Situations in Which User Consult this Type of Communication Product:
What Users Expect in this Type of Communication Product:
Communication Medium Used: Live, online "chats."
Examples:
Description: A tip about something that is not required for basic use, but the knowledge of could increase the productivity of the user.
Situations in Which User Consult this Type of Communication Product: As an option presented:
What Users Expect in this Type of Communication Product:
- Primarily cover procedural topics
- Also concepts
Writing Style:
Communication Medium Used: Online (either through e-mail or when user starts the application)
Examples: See opening screen in Quicken.
Description: A lesson, or series of lessons, that are intended to develop a skill that users can immediately use.
Situations in Which User Consult this Type of Communication Product: A variety of reasons. In some instances, they’re told to. For example, employees may be required to take training about a new company policy or to fulfill a legal requirement (the reason for most safety training). In some instances, users take tutorials to know how to perform a task in a more instructive way than might be found in a procedures manual or online help. Examples include users consulting commercial books about software, such as Windows for Dummies, to learn how to backup systems and tutorials provided with spreadsheets that teach users how to use formulas. In still other instances, users take tutorials to learn about an entire subject, such as tutorials on CD-ROM about career management and workbooks about preparing taxes.
What Users Expect in this Type of Communication Product: Users expect the following material in a tutorial:
To find information in a tutorial, users consult:
In some instances, users prefer that you recommend a sequence through the tutorial and do not give them alternate methods of going through it. In other instances, users prefer to have total control over their movement through the tutorial.
Writing Style: The writing style for tutorials is persuasive, because the tutorial needs to motivate users to take an interest in the subject matter, as well as clear and involving, in which users understand the material presented and how it relates to them, and feel actively involved in the lesson. Finally, the style should be polite, though direct, like that of a good teacher with a student.
Communication Medium Used: Online (called computer-based training), printed, classroom, video, audio.
Description: a "how-to" communication product that tells typical users how to perform the most commonly performed tasks with a product or service. User’s guides are typically printed.
Situations in Which User Consult this Type of Communication Product: in two instances:
With an immediate need, either to find out how to do something, whether a particular task is possible, or why something isn’t working as expected. In such instances, users only consult a small section of the information product.
To become familiar with the product. In such instances, users read entire sections or read the communication product in its entirety.
What Users Expect in this Type of Communication Product:
In some instances, users expect advanced tips and techniques.
To find information in a user’s guide, users consult:
Users expect user’s guides to be written in the second person and expect a polite, direct writing style. They expect instructions to be written in the imperative mood, that is, as directions, and they expect lists of materials needed, examples, and definitions when appropriate. Users of user’s guides tolerate some technical jargon, but prefer no more than necessary.
Writing Style: to be written in the second person and expect a polite, direct writing style. They expect instructions to be written in the imperative mood, that is, as directions, and they expect lists of materials needed, examples, and definitions when appropriate. Users of user’s guides tolerate some technical jargon, but prefer no more than necessary.
Communication Medium Used: Online and printed.
Description: An online "agent" that automatically performs a task for users, only prompting users when they must make a decision. When users are prompted to make decisions, the system should have a backup choice.
Situations in Which User Consult this Type of Communication Product:
What Users Expect in this Type of Communication Product:
Writing Style:
Communication Medium Used: Online.
Example: (Reservation requests on Travelocity)
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