When I read books to my little girls (ages 5 and 7), the pictures combined with story provide a captivating experience. I’ve often thought that if I wanted to create documentation that people actually read, maybe I should integrate these two same elements: picture and story. I’m not entirely sure what a product would look like that integrates these two elements, because technical writing usually … more »

A few years ago, I was scouring magazines to get ideas for quick reference guide layouts. In particular, I found that WIRED magazine has some of the most creative and engaging layouts, often with text laid out in three or four columns, or along the side of a graphic, or in various quadrants about the page. I was trying to figure out the right layouts … more »

Alice Jane Emanuel has an interesting post that details her methods for measuring the quality of documentation. The post consists of notes from a webinar she gave on the subject. Alice writes, … I have never seen anything like what I envisage in my head, which closes the argument by creating a weight or optimal rating for each necessary element in the technical communication being … more »

About a month ago, one of my colleagues approached me and asked if I would be interested in having an informal creative writing workshop every now and then. Huh, I thought, maybe. I floated the idea by the other four writers in our technical writing group, and it turns out everyone was interested in participating in this, except one, who was already busy with another … more »

Last year I wrote a series of posts about moving from the sidelines to center stage. In the series I described how I transitioned from a low-key, hardly-speaking project member to a key player on the project team, someone with a voice that mattered in project decisions. But recently, with some projects, I’ve come full circle, moving back to that initial position of a fly … more »

Every so often someone asks me if they should get a graduate degree in technical writing. Penelope Trunk has a controversial post in which she argues that graduate degrees aren’t necessarily smart business decisions. Graduate schools can be an environment that removes you from the world of real experience. Penelope writes, The biggest problem is that the degree makes you look unemployable. You look like you … more »

I recently received the following question from a reader: The job listings on Indeed.com for local companies (in the San Francisco Bay area) all sound like they (or their recruiters) are really looking for engineers, programmers, web designers, or graphic artists “who write”, not for just straight technical writers who gather information, write it up, get it reviewed, and deliver it in whatever form it’s … more »

A lot of people feel confident in their writing abilities in an organization. And many times one’s writing skills are perfectly suitable for the task. Other times they are hopelessly below readability. Why do so many people think they can write when they really can’t? One reason may be context. A person may be skilled at writing e-mail, but writing an 800 word article is … more »

My colleagues and I were talking the other day about where we’re going to publish some help content. The scenario we’re addressing is a project that will be translated into 38 separate languages. Additionally, there are 28 roles for the system. This means there would potentially be 1,064 outputs (38 x 28), assuming help is to be specific to each user’s language and role. This is a … more »

This weekend I had to replace the solenoid in my Frigidaire Gallery refrigerator. The solenoid controls the flow of water into the ice maker, among other things. I’m not a technician, so when I received the new solenoid and looked at the instructions, I was a little hesitant to do what the text said. I was supposed to actually cut off the nozzles at the … more »

This week was the first time I’ve actually seen our usability labs used. We have a new usability research group led by someone with years of experience doing usability engineering for Microsoft. I watched in our observation room as he led a handful of users through 60-90 minute usability tests for an application I documented. What is surprising about usability testing is how much valid … more »

The following is a guest post by Shay Shaked. I’ve been messing around with Google Plus for about two weeks now. It occurred to me, after reading Tom Johnson’s latest post about content strategy and listening to his podcast about the same topic, that Google Plus is, perhaps unintentionally, the best professional social network with the right usage of content strategy. I’m not going to … more »

I received the following email from Anna, a literature PhD candidate who is considering changing career paths from teaching into technical writing. This is a collaborative post, so if you have advice to share, please add it in the comments below. 1. What is it like doing tech writing on a freelance basis? (My understanding is that you have a full-time, permanent position, but since … more »

I have a lot of flexibility and freedom in my job. That’s part of the appeal. The other day I was reflecting on the best route to take, the most fruitful path I should follow. There are quite a few directions I could go. I could become meticulously detailed about style, knowing the ins and outs of every handbook (and being able to compare them … more »

He mentioned this during one of our lazy afternoon meetings, which dragged on much longer than the scheduled time. The central problem of writing help, my colleague Derek explained, is how you make it so Joe user can find the answer to his one question among 50,000 other answers in the help. Every user seems to have the one or two questions he or she … more »