overcoming design challenges in hat-based multichannel publishing
TRANSCRIPT
Overcoming Design Challenges In HAT-Based Multichannel
Publishing
Who Am I?
Neil Perlin - Hyper/Word Services.– Internationally recognized content creation and
delivery consultant.– Help clients create effective, efficient, flexible
content in anything from print to mobile.– Working with mobile since Windows CE and
WML/WAP c. 1998– Certified – Viziapps, Flare, Mimic, RoboHelp.
The Issue
Should tech comm get involved in mobile?– If we don’t, someone else will.
…how?– See my workshop on “pure” apps, this session
on web apps and ebooks from HATs. What to expect when we single source our
content to “mobile”?– Let’s take a look…
First, Some Mobile Basics
Terminology – eBooks
Electronic books a la Kindle, Nook.– Largely linear format
and design.– Generally sit on the
reader device.– Good for stable,
linear material.– Largely the focus of tech comm now, in my
experience.
Terminology – Apps
Applications for mobile devices.– Highly focused – “micro-tasking” – compared
to PC-style applications.– Native – Follow a platform standard, easily run
on-device resources.– Web – (“Mobile web”.) Run in browser on any
device, can’t easily run on-device resources, may be mobile-optimized – e.g. WebHelp vs. WebHelp Mobile.
– Hybrid – Combine native and web, HTML5.
Apps and Tech Comm
Little app dev from tech comm so far, in my experience, for several reasons.– “Mobile” is still new in the tech comm world
and companies aren’t sure of the need yet.– Until Flare and RoboHelp added mobile output
support, “going mobile” required a whole new set of tools and skills.» Like the situation in ‘91 when online help
appeared and ‘97 when online help went to HTML.
Apps and Tech Comm
And compared to “normal”tech comm, apps are different…
Sometimes weirdly so…
Apps and Tech Comm
And yet, this is “doc”. As is this…
Why Terminology Matters
Affects choice of hardware and software-related delivery “mechanisms”.
Terminology mixups can spell disaster.– Risks buying the wrong tools or hiring the
wrong developer.– Like not being clear re WebHelp vs. Web Help
or HTML help vs. HTML Help.
Authoring Tools?
Depends what “mobile” you want:– eBooks – ePub, using RoboHelp 8+, Flare 8+.– Web apps (general) – Any HAT that outputs
browser-based help like WebHelp.– Web apps (mobile-optimized) – Flare 6+, “mo-
bilizers” like DudaMobile and Mobify, Vizi-Apps.
– Native apps – RoboHelp 10, GUI app dev tools like ViziApps, iBuildApp, appmakr, etc.
Why Author Using a GUI HAT?
Why?– You may know the tool, so you only have to
learn a few new features.– Keep you out of the code.– Set technical boundaries for you.
Why not?– HAT may not offer features you expect in a
“real” app.– Possible code bloat.
Help vs. Mobile –Conversion Challenges and Suggestions
Text-Heaviness
Help usually text-heavy, apps not.
Text-Heaviness
Though there are exceptions, sort of…
Text-Heaviness Suggestion Cut down text – not fat but real text – to
the bare bones. A less extreme version of this, perhaps…
Control Positioning Usually at top and left in help…
Control Types and Locations But at the bottom in apps – less tap risk…
Orientation Landscape in help, portrait
(typically) in apps.
Some Screen Design Points Help is usually created in landscape format
for large screens with the main controls at the top of the screen.
Mobile on tablets is similar. Mobile on phones is the opposite, unless
screen rotation is enabled.
More Screen Design Points Consider the effect of
screen rotation on an app jammed into a portrait mode screen, like this one:
Can you force screen rotation to off?
Some Content Design Points Images may be too wide for phone screens.
– Can size them dynamically to fit by setting the width to % and height to auto.
– But are they still legible?– If not, can you conditionalize them out?– If you do, does that affect the contents?– May call for greater granularity of content…– And need a CMS to deal with the greater # of
content chunks even if traditional help did not.
More Content Design Points Ditto wide or “complex” tables. Consider SWFs.
– Won’t run on iOS – must be MP4 or HTML5.– Are text captions legible or must you replace
them with audio, which means creating 2+ versions of each movie.
– What happens to interactivity in a mouseless world?
Still More… Consider platform differences for feature
support and need to rework material.– Minimal table support in ebook formats.– Lack of support for Word bullets in KDP even
though Createspace supports them.– Many more, no doubt…
“Invisible” problems like tables, graphics, SWFs, popups, etc., embedded in snippets.
Popup links that convert to jumps.
And Still More… Features with no equivalent controls in
mobile, like Flare togglers. Graphics management may have to change
as graphics get stored in the cloud, perhaps using Amazon S3.
And More Still… You can mobile-optimize your regular site
using tools like Mobify or DudaMobile (http://www.dudamobile.com/)
For example…
Web Apps – Creation
Here’s my regular web site from January…
Web Apps – Creation
Same web site on an iPhone 5…– Works fine via scrolling,
pinch and zoom– But hard to use.
Web Apps – Creation
Same site partly mobile-optimized via DudaMobile.– Aesthetics need work but now
a much better mobile site.– Still a web site – e.g. a web
app.– NOT a native app.– $9/month for hosting.– But…
Web Apps – Creation
The web and mobile versions don’t match. I created the mobile version by hand. Because the original site was never meant
to be mobilized; the result showed it. Lesson – expect to redesign your content
before you can multichannel publish it effectively.
A Design Tool Here’s what you have to
work with. Where does your thumb go?
What can you reach? What do you obscure?– If you’re a righty?– A lefty?
Design Conclusions Help converted to mobile won’t look like
Fruit Ninja. If you’re single sourcing a help project to
mobile, plan for mobile before starting the project.
More than just outputting a help project to “mobile”.
Summary Lots of new technical, design, and output
options to balance.– Define your terms, platforms and differences.
It sounds daunting, but so did the move by tech comm to online help and the web in the ‘90s and still today.
We met those challenges – time to do so again.
Hyper/Word Services Offers…
Training • Consulting • DevelopmentViziAppsMobile Flare • Mobile RoboHelpFlare • RoboHelpMimicSingle sourcing • Structured authoring
Thank you... Questions?
www.hyperword.comTwitter: NeilEric