Documentation as Code

Tom Johnson has written two interesting posts on his blog on the “Documentation as Code” concept: Will the docs-as-code approach scale? Review of Andrew Etter’s ebook on Modern Technical Writing Documentation as Code can be interpreted in a few ways. Tom describes it as being able to store the documentation with the code: From a… Read more »

General Data Protection Regulation – will this affect online Help?

Yesterday, I saw a presentation by Hazel Southwell on the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which will be implemented on the 25th May 2018. The impact in its data privacy and protection rules seem likely to affect pretty much every website, with the threat of hefty fines for those that do not comply. Organisations providing… Read more »

How technical documentation helps the customer journey

Here is a diagram that shows the different types of User Assistance that can help users as they progress through the customer journey: Supporting the user through the customer journey has become more important, partly because the subscription, “try before you buy”, sales model means users can stop being a paying customer at a moment’s notice. Today, all… Read more »

A technical communication user’s hierarchy of needs

At the TCUK 2015 conference, Rachel Johnston mentioned the idea of a content maturity model. We thought we’d take this idea and ask: Could we develop a model that illustrates a hierarchy of needs for users of technical communication (and in particular, User Assistance)? A model of what? We suggest calling this model a technical communication user’s hierarchy of needs…. Read more »

Stack Overflow is moving into documentation (get the popcorn)

Stack Overflow, a collaboratively edited question and answer site for programmers, has announced its plans to add documentation to the site: “Lately we’ve been asking ourselves “what else could we do to improve developers’ lives on the internet?”. Jeff’s original announcement of Stack Overflow said this: There’s far too much great programming information trapped in forums,… Read more »