---
title: "ISTC article on developer documentation trends"
date: 2020-08-31
description: "You can read the ISTC article in PDF form here: I also added an HTML..."
canonical_url: https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/developer-documentation-trends-istc-article/index.html
---

> For AI agents: a documentation index is available at https://idratherbewriting.com/llms.txt. Markdown versions of all pages are available by appending .md to any page URL.

# ISTC article on developer documentation trends

> I recently wrote an article for the *Institute of Scientific Technical Communicators* (ISTC) magazine *Communicator* called 'Developer documentation trends: How developer documentation trends differ from general technical communication trends.' This article provides the official writeup and analysis from the developer documentation survey that I conducted at the beginning of the year.

You can read the ISTC article in PDF form here:

[![ISTC article on developer documentation trends](https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/idbwmedia.com/images/api/istccoverthumb2020.png)](https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/idbwmedia.com/images/api/istc2020_devdoctrends.pdf)

I also added an HTML version on my API doc course here: [Developer documentation trends — survey results](https://idratherbewriting.com/learnapidoc/docapis_trends.html#developer-documentation-trends-how-developer-documentation-trends-differ-from-general-technical-communication-trends). This writeup is the official presentation and analysis of the data.

Note that I’ve given two presentations that discuss the results as well:

- [API the Docs recording: How Trends in API Documentation Differ from other Tech Comm Trends](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/api-the-docs-virtual-series-fifth-edition-api-doc-trends-design/#api-the-docs-virtual-series)
- [Webinar recording: How Trends in API Documentation Differ from other Tech Comm Trends](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/upcoming-webinar-trends-api-docs-differ-from-other-trends/)

A few people have asked whether I’ll be doing another survey in the future to see how trends evolve from the ones surveyed here. That might be a good idea. This space changes rather quickly, so perhaps I’ll follow up in 2022.