At the Roald Dahl museum there is a poster on the wall entitled “The rights of the reader”. It’s a wonderful ten point manifesto drawn up by Daniel Pennac in his book of the same name. Unfortunately, the poster appears to be no longer available for download from the Walker books Web site, but it… Read more »
Cherryleaf Blog
Wikis instead of Help?
Zoho has decided to use its own wiki to provide online Help instead of Help created in RoboHelp. They have posted on their blog the reasons why they have done this, together with the benefits resulting from this change. This is what the help looks like now. We’re not anti wikis and we’re not pro… Read more »
Technical authors tackle “The curse of knowledge”
If you’ve ever struggled to explain something to someone considerably less expert than yourself, you may have experienced “The curse of knowledge”. It’s a curse that technical authors resolve everyday, although they may not know they’ve been doing it. It’s a phrase that comes from a great book called “Made to Stick” by Chip and… Read more »
How do Technical Authoring teams work?
This looks like an interesting event: “The next Cambridge ISTC group meeting will be a discussion about how technical authoring teams work: * how are teams structured (and do all the technical authors in thebusiness work as a team)?* how is work divided between authors?* how do authors work with other people in the business?*… Read more »
How many technical authors know about Mooer’s Law?
In 1959, Calvin Mooers, a researcher into the science of Information Retrieval, developed Mooer’s Law: “An information retrieval system will tend not to be used whenever it is more painful and troublesome for a customer to have information than for him not to have it.” Its original meaning meant: people will avoid an information system… Read more »