Podcast 160: Technical writing news roundup July 2025

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”… Read more »

Podcast 159: Towards a Question and Answer world

The way users want to access information may be undergoing a seismic shift. Some have suggested technical communication is rapidly moving towards a question-and-answer (Q&A) paradigm. As user behaviour moves away from reading and towards asking, we discuss how chatbots, AI, and Q&A-driven interfaces are reshaping the expectations and responsibilities of technical communicators. Takeaway quote:… Read more »

Why developer portals fail (Hint: It’s probably your docs)

You’ve invested time, resources, and a good chunk of your budget into building a shiny new developer portal. It’s meant to be the gateway to your APIs, the hub for innovation, the key to unlocking a vibrant developer ecosystem. Yet, weeks or months later, analytics show a ghost town. Adoption is sluggish, support tickets are… Read more »

Towards a Question and Answer world

Technical communication has traditionally been rooted in instructional guides: comprehensive resources users could turn to when they needed information. But that information was only useful if users could actually find it. The expectation was that users would search for what they needed and then read it. On the provider’s side, the goal was to make… Read more »

How AI-Savvy Are You? A Quiz for Technical Writers

We’ve created a new quiz for you to take: How AI-Savvy Are You? A Quiz for Technical Writers Discover your AI proficiency as a technical writer and learn how to enhance your skills. There are 10 multiple choice questions. Take this quiz to find out where you stand and how to advance!