Your customers demand reliable customer service and don’t have time to waste with poor self-serve support portals that contain less helpful content than they should. Many customer service agents suffer from a lack of good warrantied product information and spend a lot of time copying and pasting information from PDFs, emails, and websites. The technology they use seems to be in constant flux yet access to the information they need doesn’t seem to get that much better. There has got to be a better way. What if there was a better medium for finding, using, and exchanging the highest value content in your organization? Microcontent is a basic building block of good product documentation. When it can be broken out of that content, it can be used in many ways to feed other documents, FAQs, emails, knowledge bases, and even chatbots. Microcontent is also an ideal level of granularity to contribute and curate new source information to be used across the enterprise. So what is it and how does it work to provide a better customer service experience? Attend this session to gain more insight into microcontent and how it can help. Presented November 29, 2018, at Quadrus Conference Center for Information Development World 2018.

2. LEVERAGING
MICROCONTENT FOR
A MORE EFFECTIVE
CUSTOMER SERVICE
EXPERIENCE
with Rob Hanna
President, Precision Content
@singlesourceror
Building a modern online technical resource center

3. ROB HANNA
▪ Co-Founder and Chief Information
Architect at Precision Content
▪ Voted into the Top 25 Global Content
Experience Influencers for 2017
▪ We help our clients empower their
people through better content,
processes, and technology
Twitter: @singlesourceror

4. THE ROBOTS ARE
COMING …
We as technical writers can either
learn how to write for both bots and
humans or miss out on a
transformational opportunity for our
profession.
DO YOU SPEAK ROBOT?
@singlesourceror

5. ARE WE READY?
What does ready mean?
@singlesourceror

6. OMNICHANNEL WORLD Seamlessly shifting
modalities
▪ Voice to Online
▪ Online to Virtual/AR
▪ AR to Voice
@singlesourceror

7. USER MODALITIES
▪ Chat/voice
Inquire
▪ Online
Explore
▪ Virtual/Physical
Interact
To be able to switch between modalities, the source of content must be
aligned to move fluidly from one to another.
@singlesourceror

8. INTELLIGENT
MICROCONTENT
@singlesourceror

9. MICROCONTENT
Is content that is
• about one primary idea, fact, or concept
• easily scannable
• labelled for clear identification and meaning, and
• appropriately written and formatted for use anywhere
and any time it is needed.
It’s not microcontent just because it’s small
@singlesourceror

10. EXAMPLES OF
MICROCONTENT
Google Featured Snippets
RSS Feeds
Product Tiles
Advanced Organizers

11. PRINCIPLES FOR INTELLIGENT MICROCONTENT
1. Focus
Limit microcontent to
be about only one
subject
2. Function
Classify microcontent
to identify intended
user response
3. Structure
Use predictable patterns
and language when
creating microcontent
4. Context
Make microcontent easily
relatable to other content
@singlesourceror

12. 1.FOCUS
Microcontent must be about only one subject
@singlesourceror

13. TOPICS AND BLOCKS
▪ Consider what happens if we
focuses writing at the block-
level within topics
▪ The short description supports
the title of the topic as a block
▪ Every block is an information
type supporting the topic
Task Topic
Task title
Task body
Context
Purpose
Prerequisites
Steps
Post-requisites
Result
Primary Block
Blocks
REFERENCE
PRINCIPLE
TASK
PRINCIPLE
REFERENCE

14. STRUCTURED BUILDING BLOCKS OF
INFORMATION - MICROCONTENT
@singlesourceror

15. 2.FUNCTION
Microcontent must be typed to identify user intent
@singlesourceror

16. Information is what information does
@singlesourceror

17. CLASSIFYING MICROCONTENT
▪ Information needs to be typed according to the
intended reader response to that content
▪ The same collection of information can be
written in a number of different ways
depending upon how we want the intended
audience to use that information
@singlesourceror

18. MAKING A CUP OF TEA
2nd Person, present tense
3rd Person, present tense
1st Person, past tense
What is the …
Intended Reader
Response?
… to instruct you on how to make tea.
… to describe to you how tea is made.
… to engage you in a story about tea.
@singlesourceror

19. PRECISION CONTENT® INFORMATION TYPES
Reference
▪ DESCRIBES things the reader needs to KNOW
Task
▪ INSTRUCTS the reader HOW TO DO things
Concept
▪ EXPLAINS things the reader needs to
UNDERSTAND
Process
▪ DEMONSTRATES to the reader how things
WORK, and
Principle
▪ ADVISES the reader about what they need
TO DO or NOT DO and WHEN.
@singlesourceror

20. INFORMATION TYPES
Reference
Principle
Task
Process
Concept
“We will be flying at
an altitude of 35,000
feet.”
“Always put on your
oxygen mask before
assisting other
passengers.”
“To open the
emergency exit, look
out the window, pull
the lever, and push
out the exit door.”
“In the event of loss of
cabin pressure, an
oxygen mask will drop
from the overhead
compartment.”
“On the left side of the
plane you can see a typical
example of a
cumulonimbus cloud.”Flight safety briefing

21. INFORMATION TYPE EXAMPLES
If the goal of the information is to …
Then use the
information type …
Reference
Concept
Principle
Process
Task
Principle
Reference
Task
list the nutritional facts for Cherry Cola
explain what a soft drink is
warn you not to drop a Mentos in your Cola bottle
illustrate how Cola is bottled
instruct you on how to safely open your can of Cola
advise you on the best practices for recycling cans
tell the customer this week’s sale price for Cola
show you how you can turn your Cola can into a nifty craft project
@singlesourceror

22. INFORMATION TYPES INFORM WRITING STYLE
How topics
and blocks
are titled
1
Block and
topic
construction
2
Writing style
for voice
and tense
3
Specific
authoring
models
4
Rules for
short
descriptions
5
@singlesourceror

23. INFORMATION TYPING INFORMS INTENT
Concept
Task
Reference
Process
Principle
Example
Result
Steps
Stages
Outcome
Resolution
Applicability
Purpose
Definition
Description
Statement
Condition
Contrast
How do I … ?
What is a … ?
When do I … ?
What’s the difference between …?
How does the … ?
What happens when … ?
Why do I … ?
Who does … ?
What does it look like?
What are the … ?
@singlesourceror

24. 3.STRUCTURE
Microcontent must use predictable patterns and language
@singlesourceror

25. STRUCTURED AUTHORING DEFINED
Structured authoring means a standardised,
methodological approach to content creation
incorporating
▪ systematic labelling
▪ modular, topic-based architecture
▪ constrained writing environments, and
▪ the separation of content and form.
From The DITA Style Guide - Best Practices for Authors
Tony Self www.ditastyle.com
@singlesourceror

26. MEETING 2 SETS OF FUNDAMENTAL NEEDS
The Human Brain
Technology
Find
Understand
Use, and
Retain
Connect
Search
Process, and
Reuse
Well-structured content helps
@singlesourceror

27. EXCERPT FROM A MEDICAL
JOURNAL...
▪ pN3 description only closely
mirrors descriptions for pN3a
+pN3b + pN3c
▪ Use of footnotes confusing
▪ “Clinically detected” and “Not
clinically detected” are not exact
opposites, and
▪ Inconsistent enumeration of
lymph nodes
@singlesourceror

28. SAME CONTENT AFTER APPLYING PRECISION
CONTENT® TECHNIQUES
▪ 44.2% reduction in word count
▪ 20% reduction in passive voice
▪ 18.4% increase in Flesch Reading
Ease score
▪ 30% increase in white space
▪ Elimination of footnotes, and
▪ Addition of labels and visual
elements
@singlesourceror

29. WHAT’S BEHIND THE CONTENT
▪ With specially-designed
XML markup, machines
can now easily parse
this content into any
number of types of
healthcare applications.
▪ Content is human- and
machine-ready!
Specialized DITA XML identifies the specific values laid out in the
previous table
<cs-tnm-categories>
<cs-tmn-category>pN3</cs-tmn-category>
<cs-tmn-subcat>pN3a</cs-tnm-subcat>
<cs-tmn-criteria>10 or more axillary lymph nodes
where at least one deposit is greater than
2.0mm</cs-tmn-criteria>
<cs-tmn-criteria>any number of infraclavicular
(level III axillary) lymph nodes.</cs-tmn-criteria>
<cs-tmn-subcat>pN3b</cs-tnm-subcat>
<cs-tmn-criteria>any number of ipsilateral internal
mammary lymph nodes detected by …</cs-tmn-criteria>
</cs-tnm-categories>
@singlesourceror

30. 4.CONTEXT
Microcontent must be easily relatable to other content
@singlesourceror

31. CONTEXT FROM THE SOURCE
@singlesourceror

32. OUR CONTENT ECOSYSTEM
Content objects exist in an
ecosystem where changes
to one type of content
prompt changes to other
related content.
Precision Content®
Object Metamodel
Concept
Task Reference
DITA
Principle
Process
PCDITA
RequirementResource
Objective
DesignAbility
Result
Enterprise
Story
Opinion
Call2Action
WalkthroughMarketing
@singlesourceror

33. Intelligent
Microcontent
Function
Structure
Focus
Context
@singlesourceror

34. Our journey towards
microcontent is simply
the next step in the evolution
of intelligent content needed to
support omnichannel delivery.
@singlesourceror

35. QUESTIONS?
Rob Hanna
President, Precision Content
rob@precisioncontent.com
@singlesourceror
ASK ME ABOUT …
@singlesourceror