After my post on Organizing Page-Level Content, a couple of people asked me about the usability of collapsible sections, also known as content toggles or dropdown hotspots. These are sections that are collapsed upon initial display and then expand when clicked. Here’s an example: [toggle title_open=”Read this content” title_closed=”Read this content” hide=”yes” border=”yes” style=”default” excerpt_length=”0″ Continue Reading »
One of the reasons my blog has been successful among technical writers is because I’m in a technical writer in the trenches rather than on the sidelines. In contrast, many other people in the field of tech comm writing blogs are sales engineers, consultants, marketers, or c-level executives. If there’s one truism about writing that Continue Reading »
It may surprise you to find that the wikipedia entry for RTFM is a actually longer than the Wikipedia entry for technical communication. For the uninitiated, RTFM stands for “Read the F____ Manual.” Substitute your favorite adjective there for F. Flipping, frickin, fantastic, fine, friendly, etc. The RTFM response captures the disconnect between technical writers Continue Reading »
The other day I had a discussion with a quality assurance (QA) lead that made me think about a time a few years ago that I consider my “best days as a technical writer,” if such a thing exists. It was a time when I was in a much better writing flow. In our discussion, Continue Reading »
Recently, at my request, one of my user research colleagues did some usability testing on a webhelp file. He did what’s called a “treejack,” which is a method that asks users to identify the place in a navigation system they would go to find a topic. For example, if you were trying to figure out Continue Reading »
The following is a guest post by Carol Barnum, a professor at Southern Polytechnic State University. My university recently purchased a content management system (CMS) as part of a complete redo of our website, long overdue. A content management system is supposed to simplify the process of managing content on the web. Maybe some CMS Continue Reading »
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. Continue Reading »
I recently had a project with a small group of users, maybe 35. I joined the project about a month before the scheduled release. I wasn’t sure what kind of help the app needed, or what format. A wiki? Screencasts? Online help? A short PDF? I talked with the lead customer, and he hadn’t given Continue Reading »
Typography for Lawyers provides the basics of typography and general style in an easy-to-read way that would be perfectly suited not only for lawyers, but for anybody whose writing needs a little cleaning up (for example, you could send it to the project manager who keeps putting two spaces after each period). Definitely a handy Continue Reading »
While I was in Missouri at a technical writing conference for teachers and students last weekend, I had an interesting conversation with a lady who happened to drop by from Canada. She had transitioned from tech comm to usability, and she explained an interesting parallel. I had just presented my “Anyone Can Write: Changing Roles Continue Reading »