Idea Exchange. Boulder Writers Alliance Meeting Notes, Boulder/Denver, Colorado.


	Idea Exchange	Search BWA Web Pages

Notes from BWA Meeting, January 2002

The program for our January meeting / year-end party was a free-flow exchange of ideas. Following is a summary prepared by Jim Ramsay, Precisely: Documents by Design (jramsay@indra.com, www.indra.com/~jramsay)

Jenny Shedd, Getting a Job in Today's Market: Where did all the jobs go?

After being bombarded by questions, what I can summarize is:... there is a lot of frustration, and the need to stay creative and positive in looking for work is more important than ever. Many people feel that they are victims of age discrimination. Addressing these perceived objections right off the bat is one tactic to overcoming this. Overall, networking is key to finding a position in this market. It's better to spend six hours finding a person to champion your resume in a company than perfecting your cover letter.

Apply what you know about marketing to yourself and the tools you are using. Clear, concise communication is key. Target your resume: throwing everything but the kitchen sink in doesn't help the reader understand what you are looking for. Get out of the house, take time for yourself, use whatever works to stay positive, and keep networking.

Linda Gallagher and Marella Colyvas, Online Help: What is its future?

Help for Windows-based applications is not going away anytime soon. Help for these applications will be created with more "traditional" methods for a long time. However, the tools are changing (some going away, other new ones on the horizon) and mastering different delivery methods makes developing help more challenging.
All help developers struggle with the best ways to organize, write, and create navigation for help. Complex applications, technology changes, and Web-based applications contribute to the struggle.
Finding the right authoring tool for your environment is no easier today than it's been in the last few years and is, arguably, more difficult than ever. For several years help authors fit nicely into a niche and the challenges became mostly organizational, navigational, in writing clearly, and in using the best "bells and whistles" of the tools. Now, however, there are new methods of delivery (web, java-based applications) and in some ways, users' expectations have changed and are demanding "instant delivery" as in any "dot.com" application. Help is slowly but surely being pressed into becoming part of the actual application itself as opposed to something separate.

Linda G. Gallagher, TechCom Plus, lindag@techcomplus.com, www.techcomplus.com

Lisa Schulist: Visual Thinking: Is a picture still worth a thousand words?

Are visual elements on a page decoration or communication? We discussed the idea that visual elements (illustration, photographs, graphics, etc.) used in communications should be appropriate for both the content being communicated and the audience receiving the information.

Questions were brought up as to how to deal with a typical client's desire to use ALL the space they've paid handsomely for, by filling any non-text areas with visual elements. If the visual elements are used solely to fill up space, then clearly this is decoration. In some cases the elements used have little or nothing to do with the information being communicated via text...in other words "eye candy."

Meaning and Hierarchy in Visual Communication. Ideally, the goal of visual communication is a successful integration of type and image to create meaning/understanding. Meaning can be reinforced through the combination of type and image (ex. photograph with caption, technical illustration with text instructions, etc.), and it can be emphasized by careful use of various design principles (ex. scale, color, proximity).

A hierarchy of information is created by the successful integration of text and visual elements in a design solution. The "visual thinking" that was part of the process of creating hierarchy may not be apparent to the user, but it helps them to navigate through a Web site or other communication media.

Lisa Schulist Design, Johnstown, CO 80534, Email: lisa@lisaschulist.com, Portfolio: http://www.lisaschulist.com

Laurie Lamar: Information Architecture

Information Architects (IAs) focus on the structure and navigation of web applications or websites. IAs design a website's front end to make sure that users can successfully find what they need to find, and do what they need to do. There is some overlap between the IA role and the User Interface Design, Experience Design, and Interaction Design roles. Some IAs consult with graphic designers on page-level design; others don't. One IA deliverable is a wireframe: plain HTML or hand-drawn pages (no graphics) demonstrating the content and links on various website pages. This helps identify potential problems with website interaction and navigation, while those problems are still cheap to solve.

Laurie Lamar, lamar@lamar-online.com., http://www.lamar-online.com.

Annie Hughes: HTML

Most folks who came by were (like me) designers of small business and nonprofit Websites. I think the one thing that stood out was that a sole Web Designer has to do so many diverse things well: marketing, customer relations, graphic design, HTML Design, JavaScript, copy writing and editing, search engine placement, bookkeeping. How do we acquire the skills: Formal training? Informal Training via books and/or the Internet? Just by doing?

Annie Hughes, Website Designer, Earthshine Design, 303-665-1486, anniehug@earthshinedesign.com, www.earthshinedesign.com

Linda Woods: FrameMaker: Dynamo or dinosaur?

I think we found out that writers are inquisitive, talkative communicators!