Last week, I presented an evolved version of my “AI the docs!” talk. This time with the subtitle “Conversational UI, Embedded Help and Artificial Help. A fertile ground for minimalism and DITA” at CIDM’s European DITA conference in Munich, 2016 November 14-15.
Video recording:
I started my talk from the same base concepts as my talk at Write the Docs Prague, but the structure was much better and there were several new insights that I think can be valuable if you are considering the space.
In my talk I focussed on:
why teaching through conversation is back and why I believe this is the future of documentation, even if manuals will remain relevant and never completely go away.
3 trends that drive the need for AI in the documentation space
- The single user context: a shift from “download and study the manual” towards a “stream and learn as you go” mode of action with a 1-user-context.
- Flowing: a shift towards smaller chunks of content with more interaction possibilities.
- Stigmergy: how groups can work together by embedding signals into their environment and become collectively smarter than any single one of their members.
6 technologies that can help support and documentation teams to start experimenting with the precursors of AI
- Marketing personalisation (profile)
- Graph databases (behaviour)
- Minimalism / DITA (content)
- Documentation as an API (delivery)
- Messaging (bot)
- Embedded docs (interruption model)
You can find the slides here.
Interested in how AI and new/rediscovered interaction models for software documentation could redefine technical writing and its deliverables? Check out the Artificial Intelligence blog post series!
