Podcast 73: Yvonne Cleary on researching technical communication practice

Yvonne Cleary is a lecturer in Technical Communication and Instructional Design at the University of Limerick, in Limerick, Ireland. In this podcast, Ellis talks to her about the courses at Limerick and her current research project. Yvonne is currently writing a book about technical communication practice, and, as part of that, she is interviewing technical… Read more »

Take part in the Cherryleaf 2017 European salary survey

It’s been a while since our last survey of technical communicator salaries. So we thought it was time we conducted a new one. We have contracted with QuestionPro, an independent research firm, to field your confidential survey responses. All responses will remain confidential and secure. The questions will help us learn if salary levels correlate… Read more »

Could we use psychometric profiling of users in User Assistance?

In the How Powerful is Facebook’s Algorithm? (The Inquiry, BBC World Service), quantitative social scientist David Stillwell revealed computers can predict our personalities based on our Facebook activity. So could we use psychometric profiling of users in User Assistance?

How old are your readers?

In his newsletter last week, internet psychologist Graham Jones  mentioned research that had looked into what makes some web content more shareable than others. The researchers had analysed articles on Medium, and found there were several key factors. One was the length of the content – around 1,800 words ( approximately 7 minutes reading time). Another was… Read more »

Research into how API documentation fails

There isn’t a great deal of research into API documentation, and the factors that make API content good or bad. Here’s some of the papers we’ve found so far: How API documentation fails. Research by Uddin and Robillard, McGill University, 2015. Creating and Evolving Developer Documentation: Understanding the Decisions of Open Source Contributors, Dagenais and Robillard, 2010…. Read more »