It’s time to put our heads above the parapet, make ourselves hostages to fortune, and predict what will happen in technical communication in 2015 and beyond. 1. “User Churn” will lead to SaaS providers looking to assist users in better ways The move towards Software as a Service (SaaS) has led to organisations worrying about “user churn” –… Read more »
Tag: trends
The need for empathy in technical communication
One of the subjects Doug Kim covered in his TCUK14 presentation, on the changes to Microsoft’s user documentation, was how Microsoft now normally begins its Help topics with an empathetic statement. The writers seek to understand the user at the moment they’re reading the content. For example, if someone is reading the topic on auto save,… Read more »
Microsoft’s “No more robot speak” in action
Our post about how Microsoft is changing its writing style (Microsoft moves away from “robot speak” in its user documentation) generated a lot of interest, so I thought it might be useful to post some examples of it that we’ve spotted. These examples are from Office 365 Premium Edition.
Reframing technical communication as marketing
We’ve noticed a few slidedecks and blogs recently that have been looking at the value of technical communication in marketing a product successfully. With the trend towards earning revenues over a lifetime (rather than in a single upfront payment), the marketing strategies employed by organisations is changing. Scott Abel has posted a slidedeck called “The Future… Read more »
“Bad information is Marketing’s fault problem. Good information is Tech Comms’ specialty. Let’s do the maths.”
The quotation in the title is from Roger Hart’s presentation at last week’s TCUK14 conference. Roger is a product marketing manager who spent a few years as a Technical Author. In his presentation, Collateral damage: do marketing and tech comms have to fight when users get informed?, he explained some of the most powerful marketing content today is… Read more »