Summary of the findings from our 2016 technical communications survey

We asked Technical Authors to complete a survey into the issues and challenges they face in 2016 and beyond. There were four main themes that stood out:

  1. Issues around working in an Agile environment.
  2. A need to develop skills in creating training screencasts. This included how to use tools, structuring and presenting content, and the ideal length of each video.
  3. Improving the status of Technical Authors and the Technical Publications department in the organisation. This topic has come up in previous surveys.
  4. Developing skills in using DITA.

We’ve looked at Agile recently, and we’ll revisit the other topics in the upcoming months.

Thanks to everyone who took part in the survey.

One Comment

Larry Kunz

Thanks, Ellis. I’ve been looking forward to seeing the results of your survey, and now I look forward to what you’re going to say about each of these four points.

Item 4 (developing DITA skills) is especially timely. Last week Scriptorium identified the “second wave of DITA” as one of its top trends for 2016. This is what happens when a company has rolled out DITA and now must take the next steps to using it effectively. As it happens, there are new articles today on both Sarah O’Keefe’s blog and my blog. I’d love for you to add your insights.

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