Tech Comm Toolbox
Listen here: ComponentOne recently released Doc-To-Help 2009, which introduces a complete redesign of their user interface. In this podcast, I talk with Nicky Bleiel, who works for ComponentOne, in depth about Doc-To-Help. Nicky has been a technical communicator for fourteen years and is now a director at large for the STC. I've met Nicky several times at Doc Train and STC conferences, and have interviewed her for othe...
Since I've been reading The Non-Designers Design Book: Design and Typographic Principles for the Novice, I've started to see the importance of contrast everywhere. The author, Robin Williams, argues that contrast is one of the four pillars of design, and that most people don't include enough of it. As a result, rather than contrast, they end up with conflict. Williams writes: A design is in conflict when you set two or more typefaces on t...
Stephen Fry on the pleasure of language This podcast from Stephen Fry on language is one of the most entertaining, thought-provoking, well-read essays on language I've ever heard. In the podcast, Fry says he often encounters people who consider themselves high-minded grammarians, who assume he is on their side when they express their disgust of common grammar errors, such as "12 Items or Less" signs in grocery stories (rather than "fewer"...
How to Create Columns with CSS Float | eHow.com I see so many sites that structure everything with tables. News flash: tables are out. Divs and floats are in.
Quick reference guides 1.0 Quick Reference Guides: The Poetry of Technical Writing 1.1 → Quick Reference Guide Formats -- Tips for Finding Attractive Layouts 1.2 STC Presentation this Thursday: "Quick Reference Guides: Short and Sweet Technical Documentation" ...
Who is to blame? In one of Alistair Christie's recent podcasts, he interviews his 70-year-old mother about how she uses computers. Although they cover many topics in the interview, her tech guilt is the most salient part of the discussion. She blames herself for not understanding how to work computers and navigate websites. When she can't locate certain features on an interface (for example, Paypal), her first inclination isn't to blame t...
I integrated a WordPress blog into another website this weekend. The original site, pictured below, was http://tamarabonet.com. Original site (built in Dreamweaver) Here's the WordPress blog I customized (http://tamarabonet.com/blog) to look identical to the existing site: WordPres Blog (created to match original) This is my third blog design in which I ported over an existing html site into a WordPress theme. I'm getting better at it, ...
A Tech Writer's World: A Killer Manual.
Listen here: In this podcast, I interview Alyssa Fox, an information development manager at NetIQ, about technical writing in agile environments. Agile environments involve short iterations of product development, such as three to six weeks to complete a release, rather than the longer one to two years of product development before releases. Writing in an agile environment requires a different authoring methodology. On A...
Rilynn from New England writes, Tom, I notice that a lot of companies use release notes to post a list of defects (bug) that were fixed with the corresponding software release. This is something that I appreciate as a software user. I realize that I'm not the user of my company's products, though. Also, management at my company is really against adopting this practice, seeing it as "airing our dirty laundry." This bleeds over to more gene...
James Hall's book of essays, Hot Damn On my father's recent visit from Florida, he brought me a stack of books, one of them James Hall's collection of essays, Hot Damn! James Hall is a poet and crime novelist, but he once wrote essays for a newspaper for several years. This book is a collection of those essays. The topics of Hall's essays range widely -- from adventures in Florida to experiences as a boy in a library, to buying a house, ...
Podfading Podfading is a term used to describe podcasters who start regular podcasting shows, but then fade away -- either quickly or gradually. Podfading is a regular theme in the podcasting world. For example, Benjamin Grundy of the Mysterious Universe podcast recently went into "deep space hibernation." Brian Oberkirch used to podcast, but hasn't published a new podcast for months. Even the host of the WordPress Podcast, Charles Strick...
Listen here: In this podcast, I interview Bogo Vatovec, an expert in change management, user experience, and knowledge engineering, about the technical writer's role in interface design. Specifically, we cover the following in the podcast: What the technical writer's role should be in the company Why the technical writer's skills are often "accepted but not respected" Why a technical writer needs to do more than just wh...
WordPress 2.7 Released - XML-RPC and AtomPub Changes || Joseph Scott What if, instead of writing a page of release notes for the next version of your software, you created a cool video set to jazz like this?
