In this special episode of the Cherryleaf Podcast, we’re doing something a little different—a curated roundup of recent news, tools, research, and resources especially relevant to technical communicators.
🔔 Highlights
🆕 TechSmith Launches Camtasia Online
🛠 Vale Linter Introduces “Views” Feature
📄 Netflix’s Documentation Approach
We review “Documentation that Developers Actually Read: The Netflix Approach” by Pratjem Naik.
♿ Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 Card Deck
Johannes Lehner’s printable & digital card deck for WCAG 2.2 helps with accessibility workshops and planning.
🤖 The Impact of Generative AI on Work Tasks
Stanford & World Bank research shows how AI dramatically reduces time needed for tasks like repair and installation.
🔗 Microsoft Learn Docs & MCP (Model Context Protocol)
New tool allows GitHub Copilot and other AI tools to retrieve contextually accurate, real-time Microsoft documentation.
📹 Includes highlights from Peter de Bruyne’s YouTube demo
📊 Google Adds AI-Powered Features to Google Sheets
Google Sheets now supports Gemini-powered prompts to analyse and generate personalised content based on spreadsheet data.
Transcript
Hello, and welcome to the Cherryleaf Podcast.
We’re going to do something slightly different in this episode: a roundup of recent news relevant to technical communicators.
This is the type of information we include in our monthly newsletter. If you’re interested, it’s well worth subscribing. I’ll provide a link in the show notes, along with links to the news items we’re discussing today.
We’re going to cover new software releases, surveys, articles, and research looking at the impact of doing things in different ways. We’ll also include audio snippets from videos that expand on some of the topics.
One recent and interesting announcement came from TechSmith. They’ve released a free web version of Camtasia, called Camtasia Online. It allows you to quickly create videos demonstrating how to use an application: great for sharing with colleagues.
There’s still a role for the full version of Camtasia. If you’re producing longer videos or need more complex editing, you’ll want to stick with the main version. TechSmith released a promotional video about this, and we’ll play some highlights:
“What if I told you that you could create, edit, and share professional videos without expensive software or complicated tools? Camtasia Online’s free screen recorder lets you do just that…”
[Promotional content continues, describing recording options, layouts, customisation, and collaboration features.]
We’ll probably continue using the standard version of Camtasia for our longer videos. It offers transitions and more advanced editing capabilities, but if you don’t currently use a video recording app, this free option is well worth exploring.
Another announcement relates to Vale, a linter for documentation. They’ve introduced a new feature called Views, which enables you to lint or check structured files and source code (including front matter) more precisely.
Views let you define custom representations of files, offering control over what gets linted and how. You can extract specific content from structured data (e.g., YAML, JSON) and apply scoped linting rules only to relevant sections like metadata, comments, or docstrings.
We also came across a fascinating article: “Documentation That Developers Actually Read: The Netflix Approach”
Written by Pratjem Naik on dev.to, it explores how Netflix creates developer documentation that’s actually compelling. Their three key principles:
- Start with the problem, not the solution – frame it around developers’ real pain points.
- Use progressive disclosure – offer multiple entry points for different experience levels.
- Include real production examples – practical code that can be copied and reused.
They align documentation with the developer journey: onboarding, implementation, and mastery. Netflix’s approach follows good technical writing practices: scannable content, plain language, real scenarios, and embedded error handling.
Accessibility Tip: WCAG 2.2 Card Deck
Johannes Lehner developed a printable and digital card deck summarizing the success criteria for WCAG 2.2. It’s available as a Figma plugin and a printable PDF. Great for workshops, planning, or benchmarking your site’s accessibility.
AI & Technical Communication
We found a research paper from Stanford and the World Bank titled “The Labour Market Effects of Generative Artificial Intelligence.” It showed how generative AI significantly reduces the time needed to complete tasks like repair and installation:
Repair: 178 mins → 38 mins
Installation: 136 mins → 36 mins
Microsoft & Model Context Protocol (MCP)
Microsoft announced a cloud-hosted MCP server for Microsoft Learn Docs. This allows AI tools like GitHub Copilot to fetch accurate, up-to-date documentation directly from official sources using a standardised protocol.
[We play a demo by Peter de Bruyne showing how MCP integrates with tools like VS Code.
Google Adds AI to Google Sheets
Google Sheets now includes a Gemini-powered formula feature. It lets you input prompts and reference data ranges to generate tailored text, categorise data, or summarise feedback – all within your spreadsheet.
A potential use case: generate personalised user guides by integrating Google Sheets and Google Docs.
That’s it for this episode.
If you want to stay up to date on news like this, subscribe to the Cherryleaf Newsletter. You’ll also find more about our documentation services, training, and contract authors at www.cherryleaf.com.
We’ll speak to you again in the next episode.
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