Improve Your Productivity with Multiple Monitors

Chances are good that if you're reading this blog post you spend much (if not most) of your work time using a computer. Whether you're drafting a SOP, analyzing lab data, or investigating a quality assurance issue, just about every business process in FDA-regulated industries involves a computer. If you use a computer regularly and you want to make your computer work more enjoyable and productive, try using multiple monitors. More than just a geeky novelty for the IT department, multiple monitors are a legitimate business tool that can measureably improve your productivity and deliver convincing results.

Some of the measured benefits of using multiple monitors computer includes:

• Completing tasks more quickly
• Higher level of overall productivity
• Reduction in number of errors

If you're interested in learning more about the researching studies being conducted on multiple monitors, or if you're going to convince management it's worth the investment, there are number of sources available.

Here are quotes from, and links to, three credible sources providing evidence in support of multiple monitors:

• "One hundred eight university and non university personnel participated in a comparison of single monitor, multi-monitor and multi-monitor with Hydravision display configurations. Respondents edited slide shows, spreadsheets and text documents in a simulation of office work, using each of the display arrays. Performance measures, including task time, editing time, number of edits completed, and number of errors made and usability measures evaluating effectiveness, comfort, learning ease, time to productivity, quickness of recovery from mistakes, ease of task tracking, ability to maintain task focus and ease of movement among sources were combined into an overall evaluation of productivity. Multi-screens scored significantly higher on every measure." Productivity and Multi-Screen Computer Displays, University of Utah, Rocky Mountain Communication Review, Volume 2:1, Summer, 2004, Pages 31-53. http://www.utah.edu/rockymountain/Issue_Two.pdf
• "Microsoft researchers haven't perfected the genie, but they've found a tool that can increase your productivity by 9 to 50 percent and make your work day easier. And you can begin using it right away.... Researchers in the Visualization and Interaction for Business and Entertainment group (VIBE), found that increasing a computer user's display space made it easier for them to complete their tasks. " Two Screens Are Better Than One, by Suzanne Ross, Microsoft Research News & Highlights. http://research.microsoft.com/displayArticle.aspx?id=433
• "Big monitors are the easiest way to increase white-collar productivity, and anyone who makes at least $50,000 per year ought to have at least 1600x1200 screen resolution. A flat-panel display with this resolution currently costs less than $500. So, as long as the bigger display increases productivity by at least 0.5%, you'll recover the investment in less than a year." Screen Resolution and Page Layout, by Jakob Nielsen, Useit.com Alertbox. http://www.useit.com/alertbox/screen_resolution.html

Interactive Flowcharts for Processes and Procedures

When creating process and procedure documents, I almost always include a flowchart that shows the starting and ending points, the intermediate steps and any decision points along the way. Even for simple procedures, flowcharts provide context in a way that can be difficult to achieve with words alone. This practice has served me well and the user feedback I consistently receive is that flowcharts are a very helpful way to understand processes and procedures.

Taking this idea one step further, it's possible to add even more functionality by creating an interactive flowchart. An interactive flowchart is the result of linking the electronic flowchart file (such as a Visio file) to the electronic process/procedure file(s), which allows users to drill-down into each flowchart step to find the necessary procedure(s) for completing a task.

The Society for Technical Communications (STC) Quality Process Improvement special interest group has two excellent articles that describe how to create interactive flowcharts:

• "How to build an interactive flowchart with Visio," by Rod Ward
• "Interactive flowchart examples," by Rod Ward

If anyone tries these ideas (or has already tried them), I'd be interested in hearing about your experience.

Online Resources for Technical Writing & Technical Communication

I spend a lot of time using the internet to research technical writing and technical communication topics. The variety of projects and topics takes me to many sites, but I find myself revisiting a few sites that I want to share with you.

• TECHWR-L: Pronounced "tech-whirl", it's an Internet-based community and resource for technical communicators worldwide. http://www.techwr-l.com/techwhirl/index.php3
• SOCIETY FOR TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION: STC is an individual membership organization dedicated to advancing the arts and sciences of technical communication. http://www.stc.org
• WRITERS WRITE: Here you'll find links to technical writing jobs, resources for technical writers, technical information and a technical writing message board. http://www.writerswrite.com/technical/
• USEIT: Useit is the website of usability guru Jakob Nielsen. Although he writes often about making websites easier to use, his scientific approach to usability is easily translated to compliance documentation. http://www.useit.com
• ASSOCIATION FOR INFORMATION AND IMAGE MANAGEMENT: AIIM is an organization for users and vendors of document imaging, document management and knowledge management solutions. http://www.aiim.org/

2006 FDA States Fact Sheets Summary

Every year the Office of Management at the Food and Drug Administration produces an annual Budget Summary and Budget in Brief Report that's filled with a lot of useful information about FDA-regulated industries. An example of this is the States Fact Sheets for the Performance Budget in Brief, which shows the number of FDA-regulated establishments in each state, as well as the percentage of each industry. The industries include food, drug, medical/rad device, animal food & drug, and biologics/blood. I've assembled a table that summarizes the 2006 States Fact Sheets and posted it below.

Click the image to enlarge it.


Visit the orginal source of information on FDA.gov:
http://www.fda.gov/oc/oms/ofm/budget/2006/TOC.htm

New EDMS Implementation Standard

The Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM) recently announced the release of a newly revised standard that provides guidance for electronic document management systems (EDMS). From the announcement,

"AIIM, the Enterprise Content Management (ECM) industry association, today announced the release of the "AIIM Recommended Practice, Analysis, Selection, and Implementation Guidelines Associated with Electronic Document Management Systems (EDMS)". This third version of the acclaimed report presents a set of procedures and activities which should be considered and/or performed during all aspects of analyzing, selecting, and implementing electronic document management systems in government and business world-wide."

The standard is available for free download from the AIIM website, [PDF] http://www.aiim.org/documents/standards/arp1-2006.pdf

Redacting Documents Converted from Word to PDF

If you redact sensitive information in documents you convert from Word to PDF, your information may not be as secure as you think. I was reading several articles about redaction snaffus over at PlanetPDF and it inspired me to provide you with some rules and resources for redacting your own documents.

Rules:

1. Never, ever, use the highlighting feature as a redaction tool. In both Word and PDF, the text remains underneath the highlighting color.
2. Wherever possible, delete the sensitive content from the document. Again, text and pictures are potentially visible unless competely deleted from the document. Even then, metadata can still exist.
3. Use a reliable and tested tool or procedure to perform your redactions.
4. Get training. If you don't know where to start, get some training in both Word and PDF. If you rely on these tools to serve your redaction needs, you should learn how to properly use them. Prevently just one accidental data leak would easily pay for the training.

Resources:

• The NSA uses a procedure that requires no addition tools other than MS Word and Adobe Acrobat. Read this procedure, Redacting with Confidence: How to Safely Publish Sanitized Reports Converted From Word to PDF [PDF File]
• A popular tool with federal agencies is a product called Redax by Appligent. More information is available on the Redax product page.
• Microsoft Support, The Remove Hidden Data tool for Office 2003 and Office XP
• Microsoft MSDN, Protecting Personal Data in Your Microsoft Word Documents

Using Styles in Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word is one of the most common software tools in FDA-regulated industries, however, few people use one of Word's most important features, Styles. The benefits of using styles are many, including increased productivity, more professional looking documents and more consistent conversion to PDF and other formats. I highly suggest that everyone who writes and edits documents as part of their daily work learn more about using styles. Like any technology, Word and styles won't do the work for you but they will make your work easier.
Here are some resources to get you started:

• You can order the recorded version of my webinar, Introduction to Word Styles for FDA-regulated Industries.
• The Microsoft Word MVPs site is a freely-accessible run by volunteers who share their knowledge of Word.
• A great book w/ CD is Microsoft Office Document Designer, by Stephanie Krieger. This book includes many example documents and articles explaining the use of styles and other Word features. See the Amazon.com page for this book for more details.

Lastly, if you have any MS Word questions, you can submit them to me and I will do my best to answer them here on the Doxpub blog.