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This is a presentation I gave at the Adobe TCS 3 Launch event in London in march 2011, based on a number of user surveys I had conducted.
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© 2010 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved. Adobe Confidential.
David Farbey | @dfarb | david@farbey.co.uk
Getting Your Message Across Survey Results
®
Copyright 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe confidential. 2
Designed to accompany
Adobe TCS3
Launch event in London
Devised for Adobe by
David Farbey
Getting Your Message Across Survey
®
Copyright 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe confidential. 3
Getting Your Message Across Survey
Survey ran for 8 days
Promoted on Twitter,
LinkedIn, and selected email
lists
Attracted 158 respondents
®
Copyright 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe confidential. 4
Getting Your Message Across Survey
Results data compared with
previous surveys on similar
topics
®
Copyright 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe confidential. 5
Getting Your Message Across Survey
What size of organisation
and department do you work
in?
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Copyright 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe confidential. 6
Getting Your Message Across Survey February 2011
How many people work in your organisation?
Response (percentage)
Responses(158 respondents)
Less than 50 people 25% 39
51 - 100 people 17% 27
101 - 500 people 20% 31
501 - 2,000 people13%
21
More than 2,000 people
25% 40
®
Copyright 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe confidential. 7
ISTC Survey January 2011
How many technical communicators do you work with in your organisation?
Responsepercentage
Responses (215 respondents)
Just 1 38.1% 82
2 – 5 36.3% 78
6 - 10 9.8% 21
11 - 15 5.1% 11
16 or more 10.7% 23
This page copyright ISTC http://www.istc.org.uk 2011 Used by permission
®
Copyright 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe confidential. 8
Getting Your Message Across Survey February 2011
How many people work in technical communications in your company?
Response (percentage)
Responses(158 respondents)
Just 1 person 31% 49
2 – 4 people 22% 34
5 – 10 people 14% 22
11 – 25 people 12% 19
26 – 50 people 7% 11
More than 50 people 15% 23
®
Copyright 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe confidential. 9
Getting Your Message Across Survey
What tools do you use?
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Copyright 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe confidential. 10
Getting Your Message Across Survey February 2011
In the last six months which of the following tools or methods have you used for your work?
Response (percentage)
Responses(158 respondents)
Microsoft Office 2007 61% 97
Microsoft Office 2010 21% 33
Open Office Suite 13% 21
Adobe Technical Communications Suite 25% 40
Adobe FrameMaker 44% 70
Adobe RoboHelp 27% 42
Adobe Captivate 11% 17
®
Copyright 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe confidential. 11
Getting Your Message Across Survey February 2011
In the last six months which of the following tools or methods have you used for your work? (continued)
Response (percentage)
Responses(158 respondents)
Madcap Flare and related products 10% 16
AuthorIT and related products 7% 11
Arbortext 4% 7
XMetal 4% 7
Other XML based editing tool 9% 15
Docbook 4% 7
DITA Open Toolkit 6% 9
Other tools not listed here 46% 73
®
Copyright 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe confidential. 12
Getting Your Message Across Survey February 2011
In the next six months which of the following tools or methods do you expect to use for your work?
Response (percentage)
Responses(158 respondents)
Microsoft Office 2007 50% 79
Microsoft Office 2010 28% 44
Open Office Suite 9% 14
Adobe Technical Communications Suite 29% 46
Adobe FrameMaker 39% 62
Adobe RoboHelp 26% 41
Adobe Captivate 16% 26
®
Copyright 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe confidential. 13
Getting Your Message Across Survey February 2011
In the next six months which of the following tools or methods do you expect to use for your work? (continued)
Response (percentage)
Responses(158 respondents)
Madcap Flare and related products 15% 23
AuthorIT and related products 6% 9
Arbortext 4% 6
XMetal 7% 11
Other XML based editing tool 16% 20
Docbook 6% 9
DITA Open Toolkit 11% 17
Other tools not listed here 45% 71
®
Copyright 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe confidential. 14
Getting Your Message Across Survey
What delivery methods you
use?
®
Copyright 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe confidential. 15
Getting Your Message Across Survey February 2011
Do you consider that you use single-sourcing in your work?
Response (percentage)
Responses(158 respondents)
Yes 62% 98
No 34% 53
Not sure 4% 7
®
Copyright 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe confidential. 16
Getting Your Message Across Survey February 2011
How important is web-based delivery for your work?
Response (percentage)
Responses(158 respondents)
Very important 58% 92
Somewhat important 21% 33
Not very important 11% 17
Not important but used occasionally 6% 9
Not used at all 4% 6
Not sure 1% 1
®
Copyright 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe confidential. 17
Getting Your Message Across Survey February 2011
How important is cloud-based delivery for your work?
Response (percentage)
Responses(158 respondents)
Very important 15% 24
Somewhat important 15% 23
Not very important 15% 24
Not important but used occasionally 6% 10
Not used at all 34% 54
Not sure 15% 23
®
Copyright 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe confidential. 18
Getting Your Message Across Survey February 2011
How important is delivery to mobile devices for your work?
Response (percentage)
Responses(158 respondents)
Very important 6% 10
Somewhat important 18% 29
Not very important 16% 26
Not important but used occasionally 8% 13
Not used at all 46% 73
Not sure 4% 7
®
Copyright 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe confidential. 19
Getting Your Message Across Survey
What type of documents do
you work on?
®
Copyright 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe confidential. 20
ISTC Survey January 2011
What type of work do you do? Responsepercentage
Responses (216 respondents)
Documentation – paper based 72.2% 156
Documentation – online inc. PDF 82.4% 178
Marketing 16.7% 36
Online help – HTML help 37.0% 80
Online help - Webhelp 30.6% 66
Training material - printed 46.3% 100
Training material - online 33.3% 72
This page copyright ISTC http://www.istc.org.uk 2011 Used by permission
®
Copyright 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe confidential. 21
Getting Your Message Across Survey February 2011
In the last six months, which of the following types of document have you worked on?
Response (percentage)
Responses(158 respondents)
Printed manuals 62% 98
Online documentation (such as PDFs) 83% 131
Online help (including embedded help) 61% 97
Training material 47% 74
Marketing material 36% 57
Other 27% 43
®
Copyright 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe confidential. 22
Comparison over time – document types
1999 2003 2008 2009 2011 (ISTC)
2011 (Message)
Respondents 75 305 247 235 216 158
Printed documents 95.0% 87.4%
66.3% 69.0% 72.2% 62.0%
Online documents 83.0% 89.8%
70.2% 65.5% 82.4% 83.0%
Online help 76.0% 63.3%
54.1% 64.8% 67.6% 61.0%
Sources: various surveys by David Farbey, and 2011 ISTC Survey
®
Copyright 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe confidential. 23
Getting Your Message Across Survey
Are technical writers getting
older?
®
Copyright 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe confidential. 24
Job Satisfaction in Technical Communications Survey 2003
How long have you worked in technical communications?
Response (percentage)
Responses(294 respondents)
Up to 3 years 13.8% 42
4 – 6 years 24.3% 74
7 – 9 years 18.7% 57
10 – 12 years 10.2% 31
13 – 15 years 7.2% 22
16 – 19 years 8.5% 26
20 or more years 13.8% 42
®
Copyright 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe confidential. 25
ISTC Survey January 2011
How may years have you worked as a technical communicator
Responsepercentage
Responses (218 respondents)
Less than 1 year 2.8% 6
1 – 2 years 1.8% 4
3 – 5 years 6.9% 15
5 – 7 years 5.5% 12
7 – 9 years 6.4% 14
9 – 10 years 5.0% 11
10 – 14 years 18.3% 40
15 – 19 years 19.3% 42
20 years or more 33.9% 74
This page copyright ISTC http://www.istc.org.uk 2011 Used by permission
®
Copyright 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe confidential. 26
Getting Your Message Across Survey February 2011
How long have you worked in technical communications?
Response (percentage)
Responses(158 respondents)
Less than 1 year 1% 2
2 – 4 years 12% 19
5 – 10 years 15% 23
11 – 20 years 42% 66
More than 20 years 30% 48
®
Copyright 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe confidential. 27
Comparison over time - experience
How long have you worked in technical communications?
2003 2011(ISTC)
2011(Message)
Respondents 305 216 158
Less than 10 years 46.8% 28.4% 28%
More than 10 years (cumulative) 39.7% 70.5% 72%
More than 20 years 13.8% 33.9% 30%
Sources: various surveys by David Farbey, and 2011 ISTC Survey
®
Copyright 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe confidential. 28
Getting Your Message Across Survey
Thank you
David Farbey
@dfarb
david@farbey.co.uk
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