NothingWavering.org - LDS Bloggers

Gently Hew Stone: The Autobiography of Thomas S. Monson

noreply@nothingwavering.org (No Reply) — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 22:09:00 -0700

Last January I shared an idea here: collecting every story that President Monson had ever told about his life and assembling them in chronological order, to make a biography for him. I’ve worked on that project since, and now present The Autobiography of Thomas S. Monson. I originally wanted to research other sources as well [...]

Reach Upward: Season of Stress

noreply@nothingwavering.org (No Reply) — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 16:20:00 -0700

At this moment, my life is undergoing a season of stress, fostered mainly by change and added burdens. It’s not that any one of the changes or new burdens is, of itself, negative. It’s just that a number of these things have all hit at once. I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed.

I am gearing up to run a tri-district Boy Scout camporee in two weeks. This is the fifth year that I have run our fall camporee. I have a love-hate relationship with these events. Work begins on the event in early spring. While I try to cover my bases well, many factors are simply beyond my control. That drives me nuts.

One year, there was an autumn deluge the day camporee began. Only 12 of 66 units in the district showed up. Some that came had a miserable night. It snowed on us overnight. But many of the attendees still had fun. You can argue that it shouldn’t be so, but many Scout leaders are fair weather campers. If the weather is bad, they just don’t camp.

Last year we had spectacular weather, but we still had low attendance. Due to the way the Scout council scheduled certain events, we were forced to hold our camporee the weekend after Labor Day. Many people use that weekend to get caught up on the chores they missed while celebrating the holiday weekend.

Sometimes those that are assigned to fulfill tasks at the event fall through. Some things just don’t happen, despite my best efforts to make sure that everyone is ready to do their assigned jobs. Scouting is, after all, a volunteer organization.

The last few weeks before the event are very busy. I’m fielding calls from Scout leaders, trying to make sure that all tasks will be properly handled, getting all of the stuff needed for the event gathered and ready to haul up there, and trying to take care of my own family matters as well. It’s a crazy time.

This year matters have been complicated somewhat by the fact that I have just been called to fill two new church positions, one at the ward level and one at the stake level. I continue to hold a formal stake/ward calling from which I will be released within a couple of weeks. In the meantime, I’ve still got to do that calling during this extremely busy season. I hold yet an informal ward calling as well.

I get a lot of fulfillment from my church service. But I’m feeling besieged right now.

Due to reductions and reassignments at work, I have been handed several new assignments in recent days. These are in addition to the assignments I have been doing. I am tasked with doing the work previously done by four people. (For no additional pay, of course.) All of these new assignments require quickly coming up to speed on technologies in which I have little or no expertise.

I appreciate my boss’ confidence in me and I enjoy the opportunity to learn other technologies. But the timing makes it feel like someone jumping on the dog pile of which I am at the bottom. On top of this is the gnawing worry that my employment might be affected by the same kind of reductions that have impacted some of my colleagues.

We all go through seasons of stress in our lives. Some are short lived. I know, for example, that some of the factors contributing to my present burdens will pass within three weeks. Other times we have to endure for longer periods of months or even years.

Effectively dealing with stress is important. Health professionals warn that a “high level of stress puts you at increased risk of serious health consequences” (see Mayo Clinic site). Mayo notes that even ‘good’ stressors can have negative health impacts.

Years ago I went through a period of high stress. Over the space of less than two years, I married, changed jobs (a great promotion), moved three times, built a new home, got two new cars, gained a bunch of weight, worked hard to lose even more weight, dealt with my wife’s job opportunities and challenges, accepted several church callings, accepted a district level Scouting assignment, and on and on.

Most of these factors were good things. But my system rebelled against all of this stress. I later realized that I had experienced a number of relatively mild Multiple Sclerosis symptoms for several years. After adding all of these stressors in a short period of time, however, I ended up experiencing a major MS attack that landed me in the hospital for a week and a half, and kept me out of work for weeks. Since I didn’t reduce the stress voluntarily, my system found a way to force the matter.

As a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, I know that I can turn to Him to relieve my burdens. I know that as I turn to Him, He will take my burdens in His own way and time, according to that which He knows omnisciently and with perfect love to be best for me. But that path takes faith. It takes going out on a limb, so to speak, and doing it His way — a way that can sometimes be uncomfortable.

It all comes down to this one question: how much do I trust God?

Richman Ramblings: Underwater Astonishments

noreply@nothingwavering.org (No Reply) — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 05:03:00 -0700

David Gallo shows underwater astonishments

Richman Ramblings: My Morning Run

noreply@nothingwavering.org (No Reply) — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:51:00 -0700

Richman Ramblings: Warning Label

noreply@nothingwavering.org (No Reply) — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:41:00 -0700

"Do not climb inside this bag and zip it up. Doing so will cause injury or death."

Printed inside a 6-inch plastic bag

Richman Ramblings: Bumpersticker

noreply@nothingwavering.org (No Reply) — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:38:00 -0700

My superiority complex is better than your superiority complex.

Richman Ramblings: Center of the Universe

noreply@nothingwavering.org (No Reply) — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:37:00 -0700

"When they discover the center of the universe, a lot of people will be disappointed to discover they are not it."

--Bernard Bailey

Richman Ramblings: Bumpersticker

noreply@nothingwavering.org (No Reply) — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:37:00 -0700

DAM - Mothers Against Dyslexia

northtemple: I have long wondered why those ...

noreply@nothingwavering.org (No Reply) — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 12:38:00 -0700

(flash video content)

I have long wondered why those taking addresses require you to give your city and state. Whether it’s over the phone or through a web-form, why not just ask for the zip code, allow the computer to look up the city and state, and then simply confirm the result with the user?

I was pleased to experience such purchasing my new AppleTV a few minutes ago from apple.com.

I'd Rather Be Writing: Organizing for Learnability [Organizing Content #25]

noreply@nothingwavering.org (No Reply) — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 07:59:00 -0700

Last week I attended WordCamp Utah and spoke with one of the “happiness engineers” who works at Automattic. (Automattic is the the company that provides WordPress.com and also leads development of the open-source WordPress software.) The happiness engineer, Sherri, told me about a new alternative to the Codex and WordPress.com Help for ramping up on WordPress: learn.wordpress.com.

At first glance, learn.wordpress.com looks plain and somewhat un-instructive, put together by someone who is straining for offbeat graphics and simplicity.

Learn.wordpress.com: The new online quick start guide for WordPress

However, if you read the content, the site accomplishes two things that a lot of help material fails to do:

The help proceeds in a sequential, screen-by-screen way, rather than overwhelming the user with too much content at once. This helps lead the reader along in a staircase-like fashion rather than requiring the user to scale a steep wall all at once.
The help combines strategy with technical procedures. For example, the entire second step, Get Focused, discusses strategy rather than technical how-to steps. We often forget to incorporate strategy in our help material, getting lost in the 1-2-3 of the steps. But really, figuring out your blog’s focus is probably the single most difficult aspect of starting a successful blog.

My happiness engineer also said that someone at WordPress is writing handbooks about various WordPress topics. I assume the content on learn.wordpress.com would fit well into a handbook format.

Both of these principles address how to organize content, which is part of my ongoing series.

Screen-by-Screen Tutorial Organization

A University of Wisconsin guideline on web development classifies sites that provide tutorials as “training sites” and recommends a screen-by-screen chunking of the information:

Training sites are meant to guide a user through some sort of process. The user experience is carefully controlled through a series of linear links. Due to the linear organization, which requires a user to digest information in a steady stream, information is brief on each page. Links to other pages and sites are limited and only used to supplement the material being presented. Training sites follow a: step1 – step 2 – step 3, structure.

Training sites have this screen-by-screen structure

The author gives two examples: PowerPoint in the Classroom and HTML Code Tutorial.

Not all tutorial sites chunk information up into small bites on each screen. A few years ago I tried to write a quick reference guide to WordPress and ended up sticking it all in one long view on the same wiki page. Arranging all the information on one page is not an appealing format. Its length is uninviting, and there are no visuals to break up the endless text readers have to scroll through.

I’m not the only one guilty of creating tutorials that require users to scroll and scroll and scroll. Here’s one on jQuery from Authentic Society. And here’s a tutorial on WordPress from Webmonkey.

In comparing the screen-by-screen organization versus the all-in-one-screen organization, which do you prefer? Here are my observations:

The screen-by-screen organization is less intimidating. I’m able to consume it one bite at a time.
The screen-by-screen organization includes its own navigation structure, usually a table of contents in a sidebar along with navigation arrows at the end of each screen. This navigation structure is usually separate from the overall site’s navigation.
The screen-by-screen organization prompts me to move one step at a time, rather than scrolling quickly past paragraphs and paragraphs of content.

Findability Versus Learnability

I’m not sure why, but I rarely arrange my help content in a screen-by-screen organization. One obstacle is that I often chunk content into small topics to enable reusability within my project deliverables. The topic-based authoring paradigm seems to run counter to screen-by-screen arrangements, which concatenate many separate topics into one long tutorial. Another reason I haven’t used more screen-by-screen arrangements is because, as a technical writer, I’m more focused on accuracy and completeness of information rather than how learnable or transferrable the information is to users.

As such, I’m more inclined to aggregate all the information onto one page, using the all-in-one-screen organization, or to divide each section into its own individual topic and present all the topics in a table of contents. But an instructional designer would be more inclined to arrange the content into a screen-by-screen presentation, because instructional designers know that if they want the user to actually absorb the material, they have to feed it to the user little by little, just as you pour water into an iron’s water reservoir. Pour the water slowly and in a small stream, and it goes into the iron’s reservoir without a problem. Dump the whole glass of water into the iron’s reservoir at once, and it runs everywhere except into the reservoir.

Despite these differences of approach between tech comm and instructional design, our overall goals are the same: to help users understand a technical process or concept. Keith Hopper noted in his STC Summit talk on The Convergence of Tech Comm and Instructional Design that the practices of technical communication overlap with instructional design in so many ways, it doesn’t make sense to keep them separate.

In organizing content, I’ve chiefly been asking about the best way to organize the help content to increase its findability. I assumed that if users can find the answer, they could solve the problem and go about their merry way. But perhaps the more important question to explore is how to organize help content to increase its learnability. That question leads to an entirely different method of organization.

Blog Sponsors

Eric James Stone: Adventures in Customer Service

noreply@nothingwavering.org (No Reply) — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 05:47:00 -0700

For my allergies, every day I take a generic form of Claritin-D 24-hour. The Costco version of the drug is very cheap relative to elsewhere, so I generally buy a pack of 15 tablets every 15 days.

Unfortunately, because the pseudoephedrine in the decongestant used in the tabled can be used for making illegal drugs, federal law has set limits on how much a person can purchase. However, purchasing a packet of 15 tablets every 15 days was never a problem at my local Costco in American Fork, Utah.

But when I was in California last week, I went to a Costco there, and the person behind the counter claimed I could not purchase any because that would put me over the limit of what they could sell to me. The record showed I had bought 15 pills on July 28 and another 15 on August 12. Since it was August 27, he said I would have to wait until August 28, because it was illegal for them to sell me more than two packets per month.

I told him that I didn’t think that’s what the law said, and that I’d never had any problem purchasing a packet every fifteen days.

He said he could get me a printout of the applicable law.

I told him I’d like to see it.

So I waited. And waited. And waited. (And did a little internet research on my phone.) Finally, I asked him if he’d managed to get the printout.

He said he was waiting for it to be sent over from another store, and offered to mail it to me if I would give him my address.

I told him I didn’t live in the area, and that I’d looked up the law online and the limit was based on the amount purchased within 30 days, not within a month.

He passed me off to his manager, who used the monthly method to determine it would be illegal to sell me the medication before the 28th.

I explained that measuring by monthly dates was not the same as measuring 30 days, since July had 31 days. I even offered to show him using a calendar.

He said that, since it was obvious to him I was not a drug dealer (apparently drug dealers don’t dress all in black with an “I am not a serial killer” tee-shirt or don’t have goatees or something), he thought it would be okay to sell me a pack one day early.

I decided to take yes for an answer, rather than to try to further explain that his interpretation was wrong and therefore it was not one day early.

That was not the only customer service problem I ran into on my trip. On the way back, I went through a McDonald’s drive-through in California. At my local McDonald’s in Saratoga Springs, Utah, I get a large water with my order rather than getting a soft drink. The large water is free.

At this particular McDonald’s, though, when I ordered a large water, the employee said, “You can only get a small water for free.”

I don’t really have a problem with that. Since there’s a cost involved for the cup and straw (and a minute cost for the actual water and ice), plus the labor to provide it to me, getting water for free is actually cutting into their profits on the transaction. At a Burger King a few months ago, they charged me 25 cents for a large water, and I didn’t complain.

“So, how much is a large water?” I asked.

“We have to charge you the same as a soft drink, so [some amount between $1-2 that I don’t remember exactly].”

“Then I’ll take a small water. No, make that two small waters.”

And so I got two small waters for free, almost certainly costing the store more in materials than providing me one large water. And if the charge for the large water had been reasonable, I would have paid it. So what idiot at that McDonald’s decided that a large water should cost the same as a large soft drink?

Richman Ramblings: TV Weatherman

noreply@nothingwavering.org (No Reply) — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 03:20:00 -0700

"Temperature tomorrow is expected to reach triple digits or higher."

I'd Rather Be Writing: WordPress Tip: Showing the Full Content Versus the Excerpt

noreply@nothingwavering.org (No Reply) — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 21:14:00 -0700

You can configure your home page to show the full content of each post or an excerpt. You can also configure your archives to display the content or an excerpt. The excerpt strips all HTML formatting, but the content doesn’t strip any formatting and will display all content up until your Read More tag.

See more WordPress Tips.

Richman Ramblings: Using Social Media for Good: Fundraising for Slain LDS Bishop

noreply@nothingwavering.org (No Reply) — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 20:27:00 -0700

On Sunday, an LDS bishop was shot and killed in Visalia, California. He was in his office after the three-hour block of meetings when a man asked to see him. He entered the bishop’s office and shot the bishop in the foot, then pulled him into the foyer and shot him in the face. The man was later fatally shot by police. (See Deseret News story.)

Bishop Clay Sannar and his wife have 6 boys, including a 6-month-old infant. This has been on my mind since I heard the news. But a man in Utah who had never met Bishop Sannar did something about it. He spent a few minutes and set up an online fundraiser to help support Bishop Sannar’s family (see tinyurl.com/sannar).

The power of social media and the goodwill of good people: within 24 hours, people had donated over $26,000. The total is now nearly $50,000.

Here are two news reports about how Connor Boyack responded by setting up the fundraiser: story 1, story 2.

Here’s a comment someone left on Connor’s Facebook page: “Connor, thanks so much for setting this up. In times like these, we all feel the need to do something to help in any way we can. You’ve provided a way for many of us to do that. Thanks so much. It has been inspiring and humbling to see so many good people rally together for this. It is a wonderful reminder that there are still so much kindness and compassion in the world.”

It’s my hope that we can use the technology that God has inspired to be created to do good things for others like this.

Reposted from LDSMediaTalk

Richman Ramblings: Mormon Bishop Killed at Church

noreply@nothingwavering.org (No Reply) — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 20:25:00 -0700

A Mormon bishop was shot and killed on Sunday. Bishop Clay Sannar of Visalia, Calif. was conducting interviews after the three-hour block of morning meetings when an unidentified man asked to see him. He entered the bishop’s office and shot the bishop in the foot, then pulled him into the foyer and shot him in the face. The man was later shot by police and pronounced dead at the hospital. Read more at http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700061255/Mormon-bishop-fatally-shot-in-California-chapel-gunman-killed.html

Bishop Sanner and his wife have 6 boys, including a 6-month-old infant. Please donate to help support the family. About $50,000 have been raised so far. Donate at http://pledgie.com/campaigns/12975

See an update about the fundraising efforts.