Oh Shit, Git!, Retiring The Word "User", DITA Meets iiRDS, Why UX Personas Work, Documenting Trustworthy AI
Oh Shit, Git!, Retiring The Word "User", DITA Meets iiRDS, Why UX Personas Work, Documenting Trustworthy AI
The Content Wrangler RoundUp: A curated collection of content for technical writers and information developers
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Is It Time To Retire The Term “User”?
In MIT Technology Review, Taylor Majewski, makes the case for retiring the term user because it’s impersonal and does not accurately reflect the dynamic and multifaceted way people interact with technology. User, Majewski argues, reduces individuals to mere operators or consumers of technology, overlooking their unique experiences and contributions.
Related: No more “user”, say “person” instead
Microsoft Reveals Its Learnings From Internal Copilot Use
Microsoft has learned from using Copilot internally that AI integration requires intentional deployment and adaptability, with significant impacts on productivity and workplace practices. The company emphasizes the importance of continuous learning, scaling insights across functions, and the pivotal role of internal champions in fostering an AI-empowered workforce.
Adobe Acrobat AI Assistant Summarize Docs And Answer Questions About Them For $4.99 A Month
Adobe’s new Acrobat AI Assistant, available as an add-on subscription starting at an early access price of $4.99 per month, enables users to interact with documents conversationally, asking questions and receiving responses directly from their PDFs, Word documents, and other supported formats. The AI Assistant can generate summaries of documents, recommend further questions based on content, and provide easy navigation and citations for sources of information.
How Emojis Appear To Screen Readers
A quick review of the challenges and best practices for using emojis in digital content to maintain accessibility. Emojis can enhance communication by adding emotion and reducing text, and they can introduce issues for visually impaired users dependent on screen readers. The article advises using emojis sparingly, providing clear alt text, and placing them at the end of messages to maintain information flow for screen reader users.
Related: Create Helpful Image Descriptions with the W3C's Alt Text Decision Tree — Source: American Foundation for the Blind
DITA Meets iiRDS – A New Plugin For DITA-OT
The iiRDS Consortium has developed a new plugin for the DITA Open Toolkit (DITA-OT) to facilitate the integration of DITA content with iiRDS standards. This plugin simplifies the creation of iiRDS packages from DITA content, enhancing metadata customization and improving the delivery of technical documentation across content management systems. The plugin supports extensive customization for HTML output and metadata extraction, making it easier to adapt to specific needs.
Paradata: Where Analytics Meets Governance
Michael Andrews explores the need for paradata — metadata that incorporates aspects of time and events to give a fuller context of how data has been manipulated and used over time. This approach is particularly useful in governance and compliance, where understanding the full lifecycle and handling of data can be critical.
Documenting Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence
In tcworld magazine, Sean Power discusses the ethical development and documentation of artificial intelligence (AI), guided by the European Commission's Ethics Guidelines on Trustworthy AI. The guidelines emphasize that AI should be lawful, ethical, and robust, outlining specific requirements such as human oversight, safety, privacy, transparency, diversity, societal impact, and accountability.
For technical writers, the focus is on the transparency aspect, which involves clear documentation of AI's data, systems, and business models to ensure that AI decisions are explainable and traceable.
Related: tekom Europe Position on the European Artificial Intelligence Act
VASA-1: Lifelike Audio-Driven Talking Faces Generated in Real Time
VASA is a framework for generating lifelike talking faces with appealing visual affective skills (VAS) given a single static image and a speech audio clip. VASA-1 is capable of not only producing lip movements that are exquisitely synchronized with the audio but also capturing a large spectrum of facial nuances and natural head motions that contribute to the perception of authenticity and liveliness.
A Brief Introduction To Structured Content
Digital.gov introduces the concept of structured content, which involves organizing digital content in a way that is tagged and modular, making it easier to use and reuse across various platforms. This approach allows for content to be published once and used everywhere (COPE model), enhancing discoverability and adaptability to different devices, such as mobile phones.
Related: Clean Content = Portable Content
[Video] Personas 101: Why UX Personas Work
Personas are personified representations of real information about our target audience that enable us to design with real customers in mind. They help us align ideas and apply what we know. Learn more from the UX experts at Nielsen Norman Group.
Structured Data Markup For Google Search
Structured data uses a standardized format to label information on web pages so that search engines can understand it. When you use structured data, Google Search can crawl and index your webpage more effectively and understand its content better. This improved understanding can enhance how your site appears in search results.
Related: Intro to How Structured Data Markup Works and Schema Markup Testing Tool
[KickStarter Project] Designing Content Authoring Experiences
Greg Dunlap is working to crowd-fund a new book entitled, “How To Build Content Management Systems That Authors Want To Use”. Consider supporting the project.
Oh Shit, git!
Oh Shit, git! is a ‘zine from Katie Sylor-Miller (self-described Fairy GitMother and frontend architect at Etsy) and Julia Evans (Montreal-based software developer) the offers humorous and practical advice on correcting common git errors and offers solutions for confusing mistakes.
