Is your Technical Author a “Quant” or a “Pundit”?

The US Presidential elections have just ended, and the big winners were the “Quants” – the statisticians such as Nate Silver, who used statistical models of big data sets to accurately predict the electoral college vote results. In competition with the Quants were the “Pundits”. These were the commentators on politics, some of whom said… Read more »

Even iPad users search for Help

One of the graphs posted in yesterday’s blog showed the number of people searching for IPad Help. Here is the graph: For a product that “just works”, there is an increasing number people searching the Web for iPad Help. However, part of that increase can be put down to the increasing number of iPad sales:… Read more »

Google Trends – Words relating to Technical Support and User Assistance

Roughly the same amount of people are searching for Support as Help: Fewer people are searching for RoboHelp and FrameMaker: Interesting to see that, even for a product that “just works”, a considerable number of people are searching the Web for iPad Help: Comparing Google searches for Oracle Support v Oracle Help; SAP Support v… Read more »

5 Whys – what does this mean for Technical Authors?

The “5 Whys” is a question-and-answer technique used to discover the root cause of a defect or problem. It is an approach used in the Lean manufacturing methodology, as well as the Six Sigma business management strategy. Here’s an example of the 5 Whys technique: Problem: The vehicle will not start. Why? – The battery is dead…. Read more »