Tag: Technical Communication

Interviewing – part 2

Five weeks ago, I detailed my process for writing questions in preparation for a face-to-face interview with a technical communicator. The interview occurred last Friday and my report is now done. However, because of the 2,000-word limit, I have not been able to share what I have learnt about interviewing or any limitations in that particular experience. This is what I will try to do with this blog post.

The interviewee

My interviewee, A., was a perfect interviewee. Every question I asked got a thorough answer. I would say she talked for two to four minutes to answer each question. That is a lot of information. And she did not just repeat herself either, though she did repeat some information in order to back up her answers.

I found this redundancy very helpful while I was summarising the transcript before writing the report. What I usually do when I have to summarise content is that I first summarise and rephrase each section, or question, to highlight the themes that will structure the summary. Having call-backs to content in other sections or questions makes it easier to organise all those rephrased bits thematically. So this is definitely a characteristic of a good interviewee in my book. With a less prolific interviewee, I think my strategy would be to introduce that redundancy myself by asking him/her about links between topics, concepts.

If I identify one risk with a prolific interviewee, it is the possibility of straying off topic. The interviewee goes off on a tangent about something that is irrelevant to your purpose or they dive deep into details that are not in the scope of your assignment. Thankfully, that did not happen here. Not only is A. a professional technical communicator who interacts with SMEs daily, but she is also an alumnus of my university programme who did the same assignment a few years ago. She knew about the topics and constraints.

The subject of this interview experience is a limitation of this assignment in a way. As professional technical communicators, our interviewees may be too perfect. They know the drill because they are struggling every day (or not, I hope) to get the right amount of adequate, clear information. And if they can get that information in a way that facilitates structuring, even better. As A. mentioned, her first interactions with SMEs were difficult. SME interview struggles seem like a rite of passage where every communicator must find the strategies and questions that work best in each case.

The questions

When I prepared my forty questions, I wondered how I would have time to go through all of them. As I said above, A. answered several questions at a time. I think her background played a role there, but I also started the interview by stating all the topics I wanted to cover during the interview, which might have helped her to expand her answers while staying focused. Again, I would need a less cooperating interviewee to test that practice.

A.’s rich answers had a few consequences on the interviewing process. First, I chose to record the interview so that I could focus on her answers and limit note-taking. Not realising how long her first answer was going to be, I made a mental note to ask her about one detail she mentioned and another detail she did not provide regarding her role. Then, another detail. And another one. Of course, I forgot about a couple of those details by the end of her answer. Thankfully, the follow-up questions I forgot were details that only required a one-line email answer, but that was a rookie mistake. I am no longer the fast note-taker of my interpreting days and I got caught up in my interviewee’s speech. Note to self: go back to practising note-taking.

That error and the length of A.’s answers forced me to re-evaluate my strategy. A. answered several questions at the same time with extra info, but she never strayed from the scope, so I decided to prioritise questions that were likely to elicit the same type of answers and to phrase follow-up questions as mirror questions, summarising what A. had just said whenever she took a break and asking about any detail that caught my attention in her answer or any information she had not yet given me. For example, A. mentioned that most of her team members work from a different location or from home and that she sometimes works from home, so I followed up later on with “So, you and your team work from different locations…” A. being the “perfect interviewee”, she answered with the right information before I could even finish my question.

This sounds like an obvious strategy, but I was extremely self-aware at the time that I was listening to A. while trying to determine from her answer what would be the best follow-up question to elicit the maximum amount of relevant info and rephrasing that question in a conversational style. The fact that A. and I have very similar academic and professional backgrounds helped as we immediately established a good rapport. As a result, A. adopted a conversational style where I was able to bounce off phrases like “as you know”, “you know how it is”.

Though it is very unlikely that such a situation will occur often in future interviews, I expect it will be worthwhile looking for similar opportunities to break the ice, like looking for common interests. If that is not an option, I guess that the most basic ice-breaker would be to show that I have researched the topic and that, at least, I understand the basics.

Conclusion

Interviewing a professional technical communicator may not be a perfect simulation for an SME interview, because the professional communicator has internalised good interviewing practices. However, the combination of preparing detailed questions and a prolific interviewee forced me to adapt my questions, my attitude and my interviewing style during the interview. It also helped to consider how I could adapt my strategies for different types of interviewees.

Communicating your value as a technical communicator

Thinking about our e-portfolio assignment, the part I dread is redesigning my CV, because I tend to fixate on the next step – recruitment interviews. I consider myself lucky that I haven’t done a lot of them, but those I did were mostly awkward. Communicating my value makes me uncomfortable. Give me something to do to prove my value instead! That’s a pretty common trait, right?

As I was searching for CV inspiration and wondering how I could ever quantify my contributions (as suggested by many pieces on writing CVs) except in volume translated, I came across this 2017 seven-part essay by Tom Johnson of I’d Rather Be Writing on the “Value arguments for docs and tech comm”. Here, I will focus on what I learnt from part 2 but I highly recommend the whole essay.

Quantifying the value of technical communicators

Summarising past research into the topic, Johnson explains that technical communicators can encounter difficulties in communicating their value to business managers. Return on investment continues to be the #1 indicator, which means managers try to quantify the value of documentation and technical communicators in terms of increased benefits and reduced costs.

The issue for technical communicators is that the impact of their communication products is harder and takes longer to quantify. How do you measure the impact that technical communication has on other activities? How can you know how much of the reduction in support tickets is due to improved documentation? Communicating value through quantified ROI may also emphasize cost reductions at the expense of quality in many other aspects of the business: cut the documentation budget and training may suffer, support costs may increase, and customer attraction and retention may be impacted.

Shaping perceptions

In today’s knowledge economy, technical communicators have an opportunity to communicate their value as knowledge creators who can influence core activities (e.g., product design) thanks to their role as mediators between business stakeholders (designers, engineers, etc.) and customers. For businesses, this influence can translate into a competitive advantage that is not measurable through metrics like clicks. To convey their value, Johnson explains that technical communicators should rely on how these other business stakeholders perceive their value and they should make sure that these perceptions are shared with decision makers. A bit like having a company employee showing up to your job interview to promote your application. That would be neat!

This is where I go “deep learning” and relate to my experience. I have encountered translation agency instructions that referred to translation as something “basic” for end customers. Needless to say, I took great issue with specialist providers of translation referring to the very service they provide as basic – especially when there was a grammar mistake in said instructions. If you don’t see the value in your own business, how can you promote it to your customers and employees other than by implementing cost reductions at their expense? This is bound to reflect on your brand and the industry.

Similarly, when I started in translation, I had no clue about my value and how to communicate it. As a translation project manager, I was often told that I “do not need to bother the Salespeople/customer with that much detail”. Fair enough, but I think giving details is more beneficial than the opposite as long as you organise your communication so that the customer can get a clear overview and skip the details:

  • You manage the customer’s expectations.
  • You give the customer a clear reference they can use before contacting you in case of doubt.
  • You show your dedication to them.
  • You show that your quotation is legitimate.
  • And yes, you are communicating your own value over the competition without referencing them.

As a freshly-installed freelance translator, I was not very self-confident, so I felt compelled to prove myself by laying out clear, detailed explanations for my processes, terminology choices, editing feedback, etc. Would I prefer to spend those 15+ minutes on something else? Absolutely. But, somehow, no project manager took issue with the details and soon enough I was assigned the bigger, more complex projects with managers asking my opinion on what process to implement. Some project managers even suggested I increase my rates (they probably shouldn’t have said that). I guess this was time well spent then.

Self-employment is not for everyone. However, having to differentiate myself from huge rosters of translators on a regular basis built up my self-confidence and did wonders for my revenue by shaping my direct requesters’ perception of me.

Conclusion

Reading Johnson’s post and looking back on my own experience, it seems that, in technical communication, having your value recognised results not only from consciously processing and presenting your decisions (e.g., with an e-portfolio) but also from shaping other people’s perception of you. This is important not only to promote yourself as an individual communicator but also to promote your department within the business. Reading Johnson’s essay, it seems that starting this conscious work of shaping perceptions as early as possible in one’s technical communication career is at least one way to avoid depending on inadequate quantified metrics.

References

Johnson, T. (2017) ‘Value arguments for docs and tech comm (Part II)’, I’d Rather Be Writing, 28 December, available: https://idratherbewriting.com/2017/12/28/value-of-tech-comm-in-company-part2/[last access 14 March 2019].

Trust in communication

On Thursday 7th March, the University of Limerick held its first Technical Communication and E-Learning Research Day, with presentations from Louisiana Tech University professors Kirk St Amant and Nicholas Bustamente, students from Lousiana Tech’s VISTA programme (Visual Integration of Science Through Art) as well as UL faculty and PhD candidates. While each presenter focussed on a specific field and topic, from healthcare and medical to e-government, education and enterprise cloud software, one theme was recurring either implicitly or explicitly: trust.

Note: This post describes my interpretation of this event’s presentations.

Technical communicators are vectors of trust

The Society for Technical Communication (STC) provides a broad definition of technical communication as “the discipline of transforming complex information into usable content for products, processes, and services” and provides ethical principles to guide technical communicators: legality, honesty, confidentiality, quality, fairness, and professionalism. The emphasis on answering user needs and promoting the public good implies that technical communicators should be trustworthy, though gaining and maintaining the trust of the audience does not feature explicitly as an objective of technical communicators.

Healthcare and medical

In health and medical contexts – in particular, in international contexts – any communication efforts will be in vain if you ignore the obstacles resulting from your audience’s context that could hinder adoption, like literacy and the physical and social contexts. To show how ignoring the audience’s expectations can damage the communicators’ credibility and be detrimental to the message, Professor St Amant used the example of Wonder Woman. In Central America, Superman and Wonder Woman comics were used to tell kids about the danger of land mines, but Wonder Woman’s perceived salaciousness meant that she was not as popular with parents. To convince Central American parents to give
Wonder Woman comics to their children, DC Comics had to redesign Wonder Woman with a more modest costume.

Similarly, Margaret Grene’s research showed that both the patients’ health literacy and the language used in health communication can impact patients’ health outcomes. Let’s consider the fact that half of the participants in Grene’s health literacy study gave correct answers to less than half of the questions. If we extrapolate this result, this means that a big part of the population may not be able to rely on health communications to make informed decisions regarding their health because these communications are not fit for purpose.

And it is not only about using plain English either. As was noted by participants in a redesign of inhaler instructions in Grene’s study, oversimplification can also hinder comprehension if the language is not precise enough. Health communication users may have no other choice than to trust the content, but health communicators must walk a fine line giving accurate information that is also accessible and respectful of users’ contexts. Losing health users’ trust can have grave consequences as the current “vaccination hesitancy” trend has shown. The fact that the World Health Organization prioritises the distribution of “trusted, credible information on vaccines” to curb this trend highlights the ethical imperative on technical communicators to place users’ trust at the heart of their mission.

Government, education and the private sector

Three other presentations showed how communication strategies impact trust in users. Pam Wall, who is researching communication heuristics in e-government, argued that, in evaluating the efficiency of online government interfaces, communication is often neglected to focus on user interface engineering and other technical aspects. However, communication breakdowns are just as likely to hamper the trust of e-government service users. Designing a framework to evaluate the efficiency of e-government communication could help to normalise practices that promote trust.

Similarly, Elaine Walsh argues that formalising assessment brief content in higher education can foster a more trusting relationship between students and assessors by removing the uncertainty and the disagreements that can result from briefs that are unclear or missing helpful information. While some assessors and students in Walsh’s research argued that the new briefs could be too long and that students may not read them from start to finish, one student said he might not read the whole brief, but he still likes to know that he has all the information at hand. As a communications user, I relate to that comment.

As more and more online communication becomes topic-based, even “molecular”, and chatbots become the primary contacts for user assistance, I am one of those users who often struggle to “converse” with chatbots and to decipher how automated user helps want me to phrase my questions. I like to know where and how I can find all the answers in order to complete whatever task I am doing at the moment. And unless I have no choice but to use a certain tool, I will abandon it if I need human assistance at every turn.

This is where Rachael Hewetson’s research comes into play. She argues that the move of enterprise software from on-premises solutions to the cloud has put business software companies in a precarious position in terms of customer retention. The cloud technology fosters competition by reducing the cost and complexity of switching providers. On the other hand, the cloud takes some of the power away from customers as updates are now pushed to them. In that context, product adoption is no longer about convincing customers to install an update. It becomes about assisting customers to build their trust in the new functions and in their ability to use these functions. Cloud technology means that businesses have to work harder to maintain customer trust and loyalty.

Hewetson described how a people-centric approach to user assistance may help to build customer trust by addressing the customers directly with a more conversational tone, providing just-in-time assistance together with more traditional user communications like manuals, etc., providing feedback channels and engaging with users on social media. This people-centric approach recognises the technical communicators’ importance in the post-sale customer experience, and even at the pre-sale stage because more and more prospective customers engage with businesses on social media before making a purchase decision. Technical communicators play a role in attracting and retaining customers and they need to adopt new communication styles and strategies that build and maintain trust and loyalty.

Trust in the communicator/ requester relationship

To finish this Thursday’s research day, four students of Louisiana Tech’s VISTA programme presented some of the visual works they have created in collaboration with scientific researchers and other healthcare collaborators. I am not going to discuss their work in detail because it is truly fascinating and would require a separate post, but I encourage everyone to visit the VISTA website to see some samples.

In describing their works, each of the four students explained the challenges – and the responsibility – of researching and representing a topic in a field that you have limited or no specialised knowledge of, like microbiology, mental health, professional translation, etc.

To best serve the consumers of these visual works, the communicator/ requester collaborations required trust. The students repeated several times that they had to rely on the expertise of their requesters, whether they were researchers, health professionals, publishers, etc., but they also had to gain the trust of these requesters by asserting their expertise as visual communicators. To build this trust, each party had to learn to communicate its needs reliably in a language that the other party understands.

These students experienced that clear communication and trust are not only objectives for professional communicators, but also pillars of their work processes. The awareness and the confidence gained from these practical experiences give them an invaluable advantage at the start of their careers as professional visual communicators.

References

Mangles, C. (2017) ‘The rise of social media customer care’, Smart Insights, 5 December, available: https://www.smartinsights.com/customer-relationship-management/customer-service-and-support/rise-social-media-customer-care/[last access 9 March 2019].

Society for Technical Communication (n.d.) Ethical Principles, available: https://www.stc.org/about-stc/ethical-principles/[last access 9 March 2019].

World Health Organization (n.d.) Ten threats to global health in 2019, available: https://www.who.int/emergencies/ten-threats-to-global-health-in-2019 [last access 9 March 2019].

On picking colours

I was about to write a detailed post on picking colours for web design, but I am not sure that I have things under control yet in that department. The several dozens of tabs open in my browser mirror the state of my brain – chaos reigns. I miss the days when the only answer expected of me to the question “Why did you pick these colours?” was “Because they look nice.”

This week, I am drafting the proposal for a digital learning resource – a small website showing users of all ages and backgrounds how to spot fake profiles and contents on social media. This is a multi-layered challenge and one of these layers is picking colours while ensuring accessibility.

Of course, we have studied colour theory and accessibility issues in the programme, but putting it all into practice is another matter. Having trouble putting theory into practice might become a recurring theme on this blog. Unlocking my inner designer is taking more time, dedication, and support than any of my previous endeavours. This is why I am glad I enrolled in this MA instead of trying to self-teach. I got detailed feedback on my summer project two days ago. Being able to discuss with my supervisor some design details that have been bothering me has been a great help.

But back to the colours. Even though the same colour and accessibility theories apply to my summer project and this week’s proposal, I have had to change my colour-picking strategy.

For my summer project, I chose a colour palette that is linked to my topic and to a geographical area and its traditions, in order to convince the most reluctant members of my audience, who are likely to be attached to that area. This sentimental colour palette seemed the obvious choice.

The current proposal is different. The objective of this small website is purely factual and instructional. It needs to be as objective and neutral as possible in order not to alienate part of the audience. I want to use three distinct colours to differentiate my three main topics/cards. But I want to avoid matching the colours of the three social networks I am fact-checking (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram). And I need to ensure accessibility. For now, I am set on dark blue, green and dark yellow. The colours passed the contrast checks, but I am still testing other colours. I can’t help but think that something is missing. I am playing around with greys and muted colours for the navigation bar and background. I already have three very different colours for the cards, so my choices are limited. Uncoloured black-and-white cards would give me more freedom, but the colours are useful for the user to locate information instantly. Also, older children and teenagers are part of the audience, so a colourful user experience could help reach my instructional objective.

“Remember, sometimes the colors you like best are not necessarily the colors you need the most!” While looking for colour inspiration, I came across this quote after I took Lori Weitzner’s Ode to Color Analysis quiz. Though Weitzner’s focus is on interior design, her quote certainly applies to web design as well!

We’re halfway there

Virtual Team Project – Week 4

Here we are, in the last week of editing. Well, maybe not. I am sure that the translation team’s work will highlight ways to improve the source text. But I will focus on editing this week. Based on discussions with other students in the programme and the blog posts of some of these students, this task has proved challenging for many teams.

The Team 2 process

Two weeks ago, our first draft served as a process for the writing /editing team to research the product and structure in sequential order all the content we needed to tackle. Each of the four writing team members participated in this draft one after the other, building on the previous writer’s input. This was the research & structure part of our process. This first draft had ca. 1,400 words (200 words over the maximum limit).

Then, one writing team member pared down this content to its most essential components and steps and proposed style guidelines. We were now at ca. 650 words (250 words under the minimum). This gave us a clear view of our goal: we needed to make all these steps as usable as possible, in plain language, and we could add between 250 and 550 words. 250-550 words are really not that much when they include the cover, table of contents, captions and glossary.

For the last ten days, the writing team has been adding content to this draft and editing it based on each other’s feedback. Members involved in the translation and final proofreading also offered feedback. As tracked changes piled up, every few days, we resolved feedback and created an updated version. By Tuesday of this week, we could see that the editing flow had dried up.

As a translator, I always found editing – in particular, self-editing – to be more draining than the actual writing or translating. Firstly, the brain tends to read faster than the eyes, guessing what is written instead of reading it, so you can easily miss typos and obvious errors, especially when you know the text already. So, editing requires a higher level of attention to detail. On the other hand, editing is a never-ending process because you can always improve the text. Any new pair of eyes can bring new improvements. The risk, then, is to lose sight of the big picture. Editing is about striking a balance between insufficient and excessive criticism, but also knowing when to take a step back.

A new pair of eyes

On Wednesday evening, we still had unresolved feedback and we still had to do most of the formatting – which would require more feedback. We needed to do all this by Friday in order to be on time for the second test before the final proofreading. Among all team members, I realised that I was the most likely choice to offer a new point of view.

In general, I think the project manager should avoid taking on development tasks. The project manager leads and coordinates the team, and he /she makes decisions. If he /she produces work as part of the development, his /her objectivity might be called into question. During the two weeks of writing and editing, I skimmed over the content, made suggestions to get the feedback rounds started and then I concentrated on other members’ feedback. I avoided creating content. However, by Wednesday, it became clear that I might be able to unlock our situation by making editing decisions, so I resolved the feedback, did the formatting (except the cover), and inserted the graphics we had.

My intention was not to impose arbitrary decisions – I kept a copy of all the feedback for reference. But when you are stuck, implementing ideas can be the solution to decide whether to discard or keep them. Only by seeing what your ideas look like in context can you really test their adequacy.

Also, I am glad that the writing team only implemented limited formatting until Wednesday. They focussed on sequencing the content appropriately, which provided a clear template for me to propose a visual identity with MS Word styles, a glossary, navigation links, etc. Though the formatted document looks very close to the previous version, the different fonts, colours, spacing, etc., seemed to help the writing team to see the content with fresh eyes. It also moved us toward the testing phase as team members reported potential compatibility and usability issues.

Had we followed a different writing process, we could have avoided this situation or solved it differently. For example, we could have split the writing /editing team between two writers and two editors, with the editors working simultaneously or sequentially. In case of editing fatigue, the writers could have taken over again. The two writers and two editors would have worked in cycles. Instead, because of clashing schedules, the writing /editing team organically adopted a four-people collaborative configuration. This configuration worked for this small, non-technical project, but I recognise that it may be too messy for larger scope projects. Laziness is also a risk, especially in a one-person editing team: feeling relieved that you have overcome your editing inertia, you may be tempted to think that your editing work is finished.

Conclusion

When I write or translate, I tend to spend most of my time on the first draft. I want it to be as close to the final version as possible. Not that I hate editing. I don’t, and editing will happen anyway. But projects like this virtual collaboration highlight the biggest challenges of editing: getting stuck in never-ending feedback and striking a good balance between excessive corrections and missed errors. While the solution I described here is not viable for every project type and configuration, I believe that, with careful follow-up, it can be a valid option to overcome inertia after several editing loops.

All hands on deck

Virtual Team Project – Week 3

In week 3, all members of Team 2 continued to be mobilised and focussed delivering a “First Draft” to the translation team by Monday 25 February and we learnt two major lessons about drafting instructions and the need to be flexible. As always, all the time mentions refer to the Irish/French time zones unless otherwise indicated.

A mobilised team

We are very lucky to have a team that is completely mobilised to reach our goals. Here are a few examples.

The 1st draft (not the “First Draft” above) was ready on Sunday 10 February afternoon and we were aiming for a 2nd draft by Sunday 17 February. On Monday 11, one writing team member said that she would start working on the 2nd draft to propose some writing guidelines. By Tuesday 12 evening, she had edited the whole draft and aggregated a PDF with the guidelines she used! Similarly, our graphics designer prepared the first round of graphics within two days based on the 1st draft. We were now a few days ahead of schedule with fully-functional guidelines and graphics to review. My hat’s off to them!

Starting each new discussion on WhatsApp, I can’t help but feel like I am barging into each team member’s life and asking him/her to drop everything at once. I hope that this is only an impression and I have told my teammates that I do not expect answers urgently. I only intend to start a discussion. Nevertheless, I haven’t had to wait long to get a question answered or a discussion started. This week, whenever someone made edits or provided feedback, the other team members – including the translation team – reviewed these edits and this feedback shortly after. When we discussed running the first test on the 2nd draft this week instead of waiting next week (more on that later), the tester made himself available immediately.

With our busy schedules, we did not maintain this pace all week, but everyone made sure to maintain good communication. For example, one team member informed me that his schedule this week made it hard for him to follow the WhatsApp group chat, but that he wanted to participate in the team’s efforts. We agreed that I would send him a private message whenever we needed his input. I understand his position because it mirrors my fears about using group chats to make decisions. I appreciate the fact that he was forthcoming about the situation.

To make discussions easier to follow, I thought of proposing set chat hours as suggested in “Take The Pulse Of Your Virtual Team”. However, based on my teammates’ schedules and the time differences, that would leave very short windows to discuss the project each week. Decision-making may be more efficient as a result, but it might be too efficient. We haven’t found a time window for live team meetings yet, and I am worried we would become Team Robot. Still, in an effort to facilitate communication and updates, I asked that all team members state all their feedback in the latest draft and graphics files. This is not as easy as it sounds with a WhatsApp group chat, but I expect this will be particularly helpful with the next round of edits.

Lessons in flexibility

When we decided on tasks and a schedule, we did not take enough time to do an in-depth analysis of the structure of our instructions. Of course, we discussed what we would cover in the instructions. We would talk about creating a WordPress account, creating a blog, writing/deleting a blog post, assigning categories, collaborating on a blog, etc. I think we all knew the importance of defining the structure of one’s content before writing, but we fell victim to the curse of knowledge. “Sure, the WordPress user interface is not very usable, but the process is straightforward.” It is, once you know it.

With everyone’s feedback, we realised that we had not covered all possibilities, like the availability of a Google sign-in option, the display of alternative languages depending on your location and device settings, the need to provide directions even if screenshots are available, the need for definitions for a “non-technical audience” (what are keywords for?). When we realised that I did not get the same starting page as the others because I am based in Ireland with a French device, we decided to run the first test on the draft this week instead of next week.

As mentioned earlier, the tester moved right away and we all benefitted from it. His feedback as a non-user of WordPress unlocked more feedback from the rest of the team. This was the Russian doll of feedbacks, with each new finding unleashing a new set of feedback and content to include. Fortunately, the 2nd draft had gone down to less than 700 words, so adding content won’t be a problem.

Conclusion

This past week showed once again that our team is responsive, that it takes initiative and that it is committed to reaching the team’s goals despite busy schedules. Maybe we should have prepared a detailed structure for our content as a first step, but I think that starting with a rough draft worked in our favour. Firstly, we were ahead a schedule thanks to this draft and it lifted our spirits and encouraged us to keep the pace. Secondly, the 2nd draft put the team in usability testing mode. It allowed everyone to participate in defining style guidelines and in structuring the content.

We are handing in the text for translation in one week. Until then, let’s see what new challenges await us.

References

Sookman, C. (2018) ‘Take The Pulse Of Your Virtual Team’, IAAP Edge, 21 July, available: https://edge.iaap-hq.org/2018/07/21/take-the-pulse-of-your-virtual-team/ [last access 17 February 2019].

On Interviewing

Here is a sample of our assignments in semester 2 with my first thoughts upon learning about them:

  • Design and develop an online learning resource – I should be fine as long as I can find an interesting topic.
  • Blog – This is not a surprise, but it is still anxiety-inducing.
  • Share and discuss industry insights on Twitter – See “Blog”.
  • Create an e-portfolio – 1. Great idea! 2. Oh! But then, there will be recruitment interviews. See “Blog”.

Amongst these personal challenges, interviewing an industry professional seemed like the easy part. This wasn’t my first time asking questions. Firstly, questions are part of the translator’s role. Also, I just handed in my summer development project proposal, which included a thorough interview with a subject-matter expert. So, why the struggle with this assignment?

Open and closed questions

Interview questions can be classified into several types: open, closed, primary, secondary, and mirroring. In her article “Open-Ended vs. Closed-Ended Questions in User Research” (Nielsen Norman Group), Susan Farrell defines open and closed questions:

“Open-ended questions are questions that allow someone to give a free-form answer.
Closed-ended questions can be answered with “Yes” or “No,” or they have a limited set of possible answers (such as: A, B, C, or All of the Above).”

Closed questions may yield more accurate answers; however, they might yield only the answers you expect. On the other hand, open questions give more freedom to the interviewee to stray from your expectations. Consider this example from the same article:

[Closed] “Do you think you would use this?”
[Open] “How would this fit into your work?”

In order to learn as much as possible when interviewing industry professionals, we should favour open questions, in particular as primary questions to introduce new topics. We should try to limit closed structures to secondary questioning, i.e. to get complementary information.

Old habits die hard

As a project manager, I asked open questions, for example to clients: “What are you looking to achieve with this project?” But mostly, I asked closed questions to get accurate information. As a translator, agencies recommend that I ask closed questions and that I favour multiple-choice questions to expedite the answering process for clients. Of course, this is not foolproof: receiving a “Yes” to an A, B or C multiple-choice question is incredibly common, slightly frustrating, but always funny. On the other side of that spectrum, occasionally, a client will go above and beyond and provide incredibly detailed context. I am forever thankful for these caring professionals.

When I interviewed the SME for my proposal, I used a mix of both closed and open questions, though a few of the closed questions implicitly required the SME to expand on his answers. Thankfully, this SME was a strong advocate in his field and he was willing to share as much as necessary.

I have never had an unwilling interviewee. This is a challenge: learning to prepare for the worst-case scenario. Over the last few days, I have reviewed my interviewee’s profile and made notes about potential questions as I went about other business. Then I sat down to tidy everything. You guessed it: most questions were closed-ended. I managed to improve my questions by referring to the sample ones that Madelyn Flammia provides in “The challenge of getting technical experts to talk” (1993), but I was not satisfied yet.

A double focus

Earlier this week, I shared on Twitter an Informaze article entitled “The power of deep interviews” by Iryna Sushko. Coming back to it later this week, the first two tips finally unblocked something in my brain:

“Tip #1 – Start with why?”
“Tip #1a – Why do you need this question?”

I need to get as much information from my interviewee. But why do I need that information? For this specific interview, my goal is to answer my personal questions and doubts. I have a double focus: the interviewee and myself.

To a greater extent, the issue is the same with each interview. Why am I doing this interview and spending time on it? Why do I need to create this content? These seem like obvious, fundamental questions. But it is so easy to get lost in the what (What questions do I ask? What content do I need?) and the how (How do I phrase this question? How do I structure my content?).  Keeping the “why?” in mind may also prove useful to motivate an unwilling interviewee, by showing him or her why his/her input matters.

Work faster

Each time I go back to my questions, I manage to improve them a little by asking myself why I want to know something. Now, I just need to learn to speed up that process, because I doubt that I will often have two weeks to prepare interviews.

References

Farrell, S. (2016) ‘Open-Ended vs. Closed-Ended Questions in User Research’, Nielsen Norman Group, 22 May, available: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/open-ended-questions/  [last access 17 February 2019].

Flammia, M. (1993) “The challenge of getting technical experts to talk: why interviewing skills are crucial to the technical communication curriculum”, IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 36(3), 124-129, available: https://doi.org/10.1109/47.238052.

Sushko, I. (2018) ‘The power of deep interviews’, Informaze, 12 September, available: https://informaze.wordpress.com/2018/09/12/the-power-of-deep-interviews/ [last access 17 February 2019].

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When a picture is not worth 3,400 words

About that controversial cover of “M, le magazine du Monde”

In communication theory, noise refers to anything that might distort the message, like a bad connection, prejudices, misconceptions…

M, le magazine du Monde is a weekly magazine published by Le Monde, a reputable French newspaper. Its 29 December 2018 cover caused a stir on social media. The cover presents a side profile of French President Emmanuel Macron, jaw clenched and a stern look in his eyes. He is set on a white and red geometrical background. His costume represents the Champs-Élysées packed with people brandishing French flags and taking pictures. The cover title is barely legible. A literal translation could be: “From his inauguration to the “yellow vests”, the Macron presidency plays out on the Champs-Élysées.”

So, what is all the fuss about? Well, for many people in France – and other countries – the association of this exact side profile and a crowd of people raising one arm in the air is an obvious call back to Hitler’s ascent to power. Especially with the red, black and white colour scheme. Just look at the comparison tweet that is embedded in the article linked above. The image on the right is very recent: it is a 2017 Lincoln Agnew illustration for Harper’s magazine. But French readers will recognise each of its components from experience or from seeing them over and over again in school History books and documentaries.

To be fair, some on social media also identified a call back to communist propaganda with the use of the Russian constructivist imagery and colour scheme. Le Monde apologized, confirming the Russian constructivist angle of the cover.

What about the article then? Well, nobody really talked about the substance of the article on social media or elsewhere. I wanted to find out but New Year’s celebrations got in the way and the cover is what stayed with me. I suspect I might not be the only one.

Is the cover consistent with the article? You can read it if you have a subscription to Le Monde. In brief, the article details the important role that the Champs-Élysées avenue has played in Macron’s own ascent to power: his ties to the finance world, his inauguration parade, the Bastille Day parade that drew envy from Trump and was followed by the resignation of the Chief of the Defense staff, a police officer dying in a terrorist attack, the Les Bleus bus driving through the crowd after their 2018 Word Cup win, and the now famous “yellow vest” protests.

So, the article is somehow consistent with the cover title, but it is much more nuanced than the imagery and it can lead to various interpretations. Nevertheless, one can hardly imagine that the designers of this cover did not predict the controversy, the noise that it would create. Was the noise – or buzz – intentional? How many upset people bothered to read the article?

With the Web 2.0, anybody can communicate anything, and it is hard to stand out only on the merits of your message. Communicators need strategies to be heard: How should we package the message? Are all message components consistent? When should we broadcast our message? Should we look out for bad buzz or should we live by Oscar Wilde’s philosophy: “There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”