Online Web Tutorials

The payroll processing giant ADP (Automatic Data Processing) has won the STC (Society for Technical Communication) Washington DC Chapter’s BEST OF SHOW Award in the 2008-2009 Online Communications Competition.

The ADP technical writing project team was rewarded with the honor for its entry “Web-Based Tutorial Storyboard Template” developed by Richard Hughes, Jongbum Lee, and Helene Jeiven

ADP tackled a well-known problem faced by all who develop storyboards for online training modules: changes to the final HTML module is very difficult to make once the initial development and review phase is over.

The usual development sequence is as follows: 1) Design, 2) Program, 3) SME (Subject Matter Experts), and 4) Edit.

The problem with this work-flow is that, if the SMEs do not like what they see, the whole tutorial module has to go back to the programmers and the whole interface and all the backend connections need to be recoded.

The ADP technical writing team came up with an ingenious solution to this problem.

Yes, the SMEs wanted to see a “finished prototype” before giving a green-light. But who said this had to be an HTML prototype? What if the whole module could be simulated in MS Word, as a Word document with a FORM that looked exactly like the finished product?

Such a solution, changed the sequencing of the 4 steps in the work-flow. As a result, the steps were re-arranged as 1) Design, 2) SME, 3) Edit, and 4) Program.

SMEs had no trouble making their corrections directly on the Word document itself and passing it on to other members of the review team. The tricky part of the project was to translate the finished Word document into the final HTML module. But thanks to the crackerjack programmer in the team, that step was eventually handled as well.

I am impressed by the creativity of the ADP documentation team. I’m sure the implementation of this idea is harder than it sounds due to the difficulty of emulating the HTML interface inside a Word document by using the quirky “forms” functionality. But since all code developers are more familiar with MS Word than any other text editor out there, I think it is a solution that deserves the attention of all teams developing similar tutorials.

Over all, a great idea, executed well. Congrats to the ADP team.

Regarding article writing SEO (Search Engine Optimization), no matter how far along you are in the business of Internet entrepreneurial content creation, there is no doubt that you often run into idiosyncrasies, inconsistencies, and otherwise unexpected challenges or problems with procuring, producing, plus publishing your online content. With the currently growing and soon-to-be popular strategy of Web 2.0 link wheels, for example, it becomes instantly apparent that you literally need GOBS of high quality, non-repetitive content to effectively market your message, motto, product, or service, both individually and inclusively.

Presently, the primary medium for beginners and even highly experienced, seasoned, online author enterprisers is article marketing — particularly by way of article writing SEO content. Today’s tutorials-tips recommendation focuses upon the one aspect that can make article marketing truly effective according to your specific skills, resources, and preferences.

On that note, regarding personality and resourcefulness, perhaps this is a good place to highlight the fact that when Internet marketing strategy “gurus” make suggestions or write e-books and online instruction packages that tell you to handle your web task-work and content creation in a certain way, you need to nearly ALWAYS keep in mind how one shoe size seldom ever fits ALL people. And this fact remains particularly true when it comes to creating unique handwritten text to accurate complement the various Internet marketing tasks you see in this article writing SEO tutorials-tips presentation.

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Simply understand that this is rearranged or restructured (yet, not “rewritten” or original on your part) content which you have permission to utilize within the ethical restrictions of such a program. Additionally, tutorial SEO article writing tips now more often list the option of systematic keyword substitution, in order that your RSS-fed programming system can more closely provide relevant article-writing-SEO information that almost perfectly matches specific keyword search queries.

Now, the other two acceptable plus respected methods comprise a combination of creating or writing your text yourself, by hand, thus giving you assured 100% unique handwritten content; or having a third party, relative, or friend (with high-level expertise plus proficiency) write content on your behalf. In such cases, the agreement on authorship is your alternative, choice, or option.

Meaning, either you can acquire the original author’s permission to publish the content in your name, or you may pay the author to write specific content for you, while retaining her or his name in your author resource box or prominent online web writer credits section. In case the above point deserves further clarification in this article writing SEO tutorials-tips session, it is again, that no differently than any other ethical, legal, or legitimate business transaction, you must respect and adhere to the acceptable, professional terms and conditions of authorship in your SEO-article-writing endeavors, as well.

The above point comprises highly important information for this tutorials-tips segment, as countless new online entrepreneurs (and many experienced ones, as well) either fail to realize or simply underestimate the perceived value of online content that remains available for procurement, production, and publishing. A separate article will additionally discuss the deeper ramifications and strategies for actually writing your own 100% unique content, by hand, using Google-style semantics accordingly with the outlines in this article writing SEO tutorials-tips session.

For now, however, it may suffice for you to know that you can handle your SEO-article-writing assignments in the above three ways, solely or combined, using article RSS to blog options, your own self-generated and completed handwritten content, or text received via legitimate publishing agreement with a preferred third party.