One Tool Does Not Do It All

Train Your Customers is now The Customer Education Toolbox to focus on the tools and strategies for content development, especially for customer self-serve educational content.

​Content development is what I do best. In fact, for this post, I'd like to take a look back at the content I developed in 2017 and share the tools I use to make that happen.

Between instructor guides and student training manuals, I wrote approximately 1400 pages of content (or about 200,000 words) in 2017. To support those workshops, I developed over 400 PowerPoint slides and several quick reference guides. For self-paced training, I developed a total of about 800 eLearning slides, evenly divided between presentation style, interactive and review questions.

I produced 110 minutes of tutorial videos, and between the videos and eLearning, recorded approximately 210 minutes of narration. I wrote another 6000 words of new knowledge base content across four different software products.

After working as a localization specialist on other authors' single-source documentation for several years, I also authored my first massive single-source documentation project for both user guides and online help for a multi-module SaaS product.

​In addition, in my own business as a freelancer, I wrote proposals, blog posts and even a start to my own course content.

It all feels like a pretty good accomplishment, so now I want to share the strategies and workflows that help me stay super efficient and productive. 

In this post, I'll introduce you to my technology stack. What I've learned in 12 years as a freelancer, is that one tool does not do it all. I'm a big believer in using the right tool for the job, and these are the tools I've invested in on a regular basis to help me create effective content.​

Words

​Words are the basis of any customer education project, whether they are delivered as guides, instructor-led training or scripts for narration work.

Evernote - Even before I went through the Evernote Certified Consultant training program, I was storing lots of content in Evernote. Now I use it for almost all of my first drafts, as well as collecting thoughts and notes about particular projects. I love that I can access these notes from anywhere and create content without any fuss. Plus, it's easy to copy and paste into another application when I'm ready for fancier formatting.

Word - I've used Word forever, as many of my clients have long preferred it for user guides and manuals. Since I've developed Word Essentials, Advanced, and Expert courses, and produced hundreds of pages of manual content, I feel it's safe to say that I'm a Word power user. As a power user, I know that most people don't use a fraction of its capabilities, many of which I leverage for "intermediate packets" of work for content that will eventually end up in another platform.

Flare - I first started using Flare about 5 years ago for doing localization work and quickly came to prefer it over Robohelp. It's a powerful application, and is the best I've seen at developing topic-based authoring for single-source documentation and delivering those docs over multiple outputs and audiences. When there are hundreds of pages of content to maintain, Flare is my tool of choice. ​

Images

Images are an absolute must for technology documentation and training.

SnagIt - Since upgrading to SnagIt 2018 at the end of October 2017, I've taken over 1500 screen shots. It's never been so easy to grab a shot and organize it for later use. The new features of filling the background and editing text are exciting, even if they don't quite work as seamlessly as promised. I will never go back to another tool for screen shots.

PowerPoint - PowerPoint is sometimes the right tool for putting together a simple visual. Although I learned Photoshop and Illustrator way back in the 1990s, I haven't kept up and would never consider myself a graphic designer. But I can put together shapes and other visuals to communicate a message, and sometimes PowerPoint is the right tool for that. 

Video

A video of under three minutes can teach a basic skill exponentially better than two or three pages of text with visuals. No one reads documentation, but as long as you keep videos short, your audience will watch and learn what they need to know.

Camtasia - Camtasia is better at screen recordings than the other tools in my stack, though sometimes I use them in combination.

Captivate - Captivate is the first modern eLearning tool that I used, but I also use it to develop videos in a flash. You can swap out the narration and images to have two different versions of your video in minutes.

*I have also used Adobe Premiere Pro, but find it way more power than I need for tutorial videos.

Narration

Video is just not the same if it doesn't include narration.

Audacity - I've only used Audacity as a recording and editing tool. I've tried the in-product audio recording and editing tools for other tools, including Camtasia, Captivate, Storyline and Adobe Premiere Pro, but I prefer Audacity. Maybe if I was a narration/voice over specialist, I would use a more sophisticated tool, but as it is, it gets the job done and has some nice features to keep me efficient and productive.

eLearning

I worked in Authorware for a couple of years before my extended family leave from the workforce, so I was excited when I got the opportunity to add the rapid development eLearning tools to my skill set.

PowerPoint - I leverage PowerPoint to get content into the other programs quickly.

Captivate - While Captivate rocks a quick video creation tool, I find it clunky to use for eLearning. Still, hundreds of slides later, sometimes it's the right tool for the job.

Storyline - Storyline 2 is the newest tool in my toolbox. I love how easy it is to develop interactions and review questions. But even though it tries, it doesn't do other jobs as well (or at all) as some of my other tools, like software screen simulations and output as video for YouTube. I've tried Storyline 360, but haven't found a motivating reason to upgrade yet.

Project Management and Beyond

I'd be remiss if I failed to mention that all of this content takes planning and project management to stay on task and get things done. I use a combination of Evernote and Nozbe to manage tasks and projects. ​I also have other tools that help me run my business, including Toggl, Excel and Quickbooks, but I'll focus on content development in this blog.

​Coming up, I'll be doing some deep dives about specific workflows that help me take advantage of each tool's strength, while staying efficient and effective with the task at hand.