Last month, I attended an Editors’ Association of Canada meeting in Saskatoon for a training session on the ‘Fundamentals of Communicating Numerical Information”.

Melissa Spore, an instructional designer at the University of Saskatchewan and co-author of Presenting Numbers, Tables and Charts (Oxford University Press, 2003), was a delightful presenter and gave me a lot to think about.

The presentation covered the core concepts within her book and generated several “Well, duh, why didn’t I think of that before?” moments for me. Many of the rules proposed by Bigwood and Spore are glaringly obvious when you stop and think about them, but unfortunately it is all too easy to ignore the obvious. Isn’t it funny how frequently we discount KISS (that’s Keep It Simple Silly!) principles especially in our writing?

Looking back at project I have authored and edited over the years, I am ashamed to say that I too have broken some rules. But I’ll do better now, I promise.

If you have a chance, I would highly recommend adding Bigwood and Spore’s book to your reference bookshelf or requesting it for your library! (ISBN 0-19-860722-9) I’ve added some links to more information and places to purchase the book below:

Bigwood and Spore’s website: Plain Figures
Presenting Numbers, Tables and Charts at Amazon.ca

I promised a review shortly after the changes occurred. It has taken me a little bit longer, but here it is:

NSERC has to appeal to several different audiences, therefore I understand the need to focus on the ‘why research is important’ message to the public on the home page with the slick slideshow. The look is definitely fresher and friendlier to the public. That being said, the five second refreshes on the slideshow gave me an excruciating headache and made it difficult to look at the rest of the home page. The home page is definitely weighted towards public communication and the media. Besides the success story slideshow, there are more than four direct links to ‘Media Room’ content.

After being subscribed to their RSS feeds for over a month, I am disappointed. They have seven separate feed channels, but the segmentation of the actual content is limited. Most of the content they post is syndicated to all the feeds, which leaves the signal to noise ratio pretty high.

My other pet peeve with the feed system is that even when you click on the links within the feed to read more detail, you don’t necessarily jump to the appropriate article. Perhaps there is an error with my reader, but there were certain articles that I had to search for and had trouble finding on the media page. This has happened more than once, most notably with the recent Strategic Review and Budget release. Again, perhaps this particular post is an anomaly, but it is missing from the main newsfeed on the home page and media room pages. (Note: it does exist on the program news page.)

The left sidebar and header menus content and organization look similar to the old version of the site. Clicking through the left sidebar to particular audience segments, such as “Professors” or “Partners”, results in a change to the left side menu to provide information specific to that group. An additional feature is the dynamic locator line that tells you exactly where you are in the navigation and allows you to return to previous menus. No matter the audience, there is simply a glut of information available on the site. However, I am not really sure if there is a solution – I guess the newbies will have to grin and bear a few hours of online research to get a grasp of the vast number of programs available and whether they are pertinent to their research plans.

As a highlight, there is a handy new link directly to the application forms and program instructions on the right sidebar. I love this feature of the site – it was the portion of the old site that I had bookmarked and used all the time!! It is the best resource on the site to find information quickly when working on specific applications.

Happy navigating!

I am pleased to announce that I have added a new feature to my website to provide better service to my clients. I now have a secure file transfer utility available!

It must be the geek in me that is terribly excited about this. To explain, this will make working with and transfering files larger than 10MB much easier. Hooray!

With the final submission deadline now past, I have decided to remove the NSERC Discovery Grant Help Guide from the website. Watch for a new edition in August 2009!

Please email me if you would like a copy of the 2008 version.

With the final submission deadline now past, I have decided to remove the webpage dedicated to the ABC competition from the website. This means that the style sheet will no longer be available online. Please email me if you would like a copy.