Andrew Etter has written a short, Kindle ebook called “Modern Technical Writing: An Introduction to Software Documentation“. The book is Andrew’s personal view of technical communication, based on his experience of being a technical communicator in Silicon Valley. It neatly describes the “Docs-like-code” approach to technical writing, and it challenges the impulse to write about everything…. Read more »
Tag: Technical Communication
New note-taking methods for technical communicators
Note-taking is an important part of a technical communication process. A typical project can move from the account manager to the project manager, and then onto the technical communicator. Sharing information gathered at client meetings with project team members is often done through internal meetings and phone calls, handover documents written in Word, and other related… Read more »
Can a Technical Author be a master of more than one trade?
Technical Authors are normally seen as masters of writing user documentation, but their skills are not often applied to other areas of the business. For example, it’s usually the case our clients for software documentation are different from our procedures writing clients. However, we’re currently working for a client where we began by editing a… Read more »
How common knowledge disappears – customer questions & answers for a turntable
https://twitter.com/leelefever/status/792866791399698433 In the olden days, every family had a record player (also known as a “turntable”), and pretty much everyone knew how to use it. However, if you look at the Customer Questions & Answers section for a turntable currently on sale on Amazon, it’s clear that many people today don’t know how a turntable works,… Read more »
Technical writing as public service – Video
Here is a link to a recording of an interesting presentation from Britta Gustafson on aspects of working on documentation in the US Government. “What if U.S. federal agencies decided to reuse and contribute to open source software projects built by other agencies, since agencies often have similar technology problems to solve? And what if they hired… Read more »