Podcast: Make Your Help Indispensable, Safeguard Your Job
January 31st, 2009 | Posted in Podcasts 3 Comments »
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Length: 30 min.
In this podcast, I talk with Mike Hughes, second vice president of the STC, about his latest UXMatters article, “Straight Talk: Surviving Tough Times as a User Assistance Writer.” We talk about how to make help more valuable, more worthwhile and user-focused, so you don’t lose your job when companies begin laying off employees based on lack of value.
Here are a few other topics we cover in this podcast:
- Where help must appear to be used, and how to pitch it to the user
- Why documenting everything is sometimes the worst thing you can do
- What it means to make your help “a mile wide and thirty seconds deep”
- How identifying points of pain and information gaps can help you avoid writing obvious instructions
- Why tools and technologies can distract you from the content
About Mike Hughes
Mike is a seasoned technical communicator with 20 plus years of experience. He currently works for IBM Internet Security Systems as a user assistance architect. He holds a PhD in Instructional Technology from the University of Georgia and a Masters in Technical and Professional Communication from Southern Polytechnic State University. Mike also contributes regular columns to UX Matters and writes a blog at http://user-assistance.blogspot.com.
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Tags: job, technologies, tools, users, value, worthwhile
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On a somewhat related topic, I’ve recently been on the other side of the hiring process and have seen first hand how we applicants sabotage ourselves.
At times I’ve felt like Simon on American Idol during a bad audition, asking “Are you pulling my leg? Is this some kind of a joke?”
So I posted a podcast of tips for applicants. In this economy, some of the information may help folks avoid common mistakes.
[...] had the chance to listen to a podcast with many of these ideas articulated better than I can articulate. It’s definitely worth a [...]
[...] wide and thirty seconds deep.” I first heard Mike mention this help landscape metaphor in a podcast several months back. Mike also wrote an article called “The Help Landscape: A Mile Wide and [...]