One of the topics I haven't covered is how to organize content within the same page. If your topics become long and look more like Wikipedia pages, you will have a lot of content to organize -- potentially twenty different sections on the page, including both tasks and concepts. What's the best way to organize all your page-level content? Although many users, being action-oriented and looking to do something, may skip straight to a task, ...
During our move from Utah to California, we had a lot of things to do – preparing our house to rent, packing, loading, driving, finding a place to rent, unpacking, and the million tasks in between, such as researching areas, renting a truck, and navigating directions. As I have four children under the age of 13, there wasn't much for them to do, and they kind of had to spectate and wait and watch as we moved. We've never encouraged video ...
The most common questions I get on my blog are questions about finding jobs in technical writing. While looking for jobs the other month, I realized a few things that I haven't actually recommended before. Here are a few notes from my recent job search: Large companies often select candidates to interview based on employee recommendations. I have a lot of connections with tech writers (784 on Linkedin), so I had quite a few people who he...
Big changes are in store for our family. We're moving from Utah to California, and I'm starting a new job in Redwood City (which is in the San Francisco Bay area) at a company called Badgeville. Badgeville is one of the leading companies in gamification, which is the practice of incorporating game dynamics and techniques into non-game settings to influence user behavior. I'm really excited about the new adventures and opportunities ahead...
I spent the past week in California, interviewing with various companies. In preparation for each interview, I studied each company's documentation as best I could. I noticed two main trends. Some companies group all their documentation together into one massive site. The sites usually have a robust table of contents and include help for most of the company's products. In contrast, other companies segment out their help into smaller sites...
Although we have a lot of single sourcing tools, and the term single sourcing is used constantly in tech comm conversations, I've never had a firm answer to the following question: How should the print output differ from the online output? Let's assume that you have all your content in a help authoring tool. You have two outputs configured: an online help and a PDF manual. Should the two formats contain about the same content? This questi...
I received the following question from a reader: Hi Tom, I absolutely love your column and feel as though you are writing for me. I was wondering if you could devote an article, or maybe you already have, about how to approach programmers about their screen designs. Our company has three totally separate divisions that focus on different things. I've just been moved to a different division, and I've found the programmers in this division ...
Less common roles companies are looking for (photo from Flickr) This week I had an interesting conversation with Scott Abel, The Content Wrangler. He mentioned that he recently surveyed around 500 companies (many in Silicon Valley), evaluating their needs and the kinds of technical writers they're looking for. In addition to skill sets that you might expect, such as needs for writers who know structured authoring, XML, and DITA, companie...
Author in DITA, publish in WordPress 1.0 → Import DITA Webhelp Output into WordPress 1.1 Author in DITA, publish with WordPress 1.2 Challenges in using WordPress for publishing DITA content 1.3 Using WordPress natively for single source...
The other week my colleague asked me to write down a few notes about how I handle images with Flare. I realized there's a lot to know about images, especially when trying to single source them both to print and online outputs. In this post, I'll jot down a few of the more tricky points when it comes to single sourcing images. Dimensions Before taking a screenshot, the first question to ask is what dimensions to use. You want to figure out...
No help strategy can be complete without including regular analysis of search analytics. Search analytics are the metrics about how users access to your help content. For example, some key search analytics include the number of page views for each page in your help, the length of time each page was viewed, the bounce rate, and so on. I use Adobe Site Catalyst (Omniture) to track the page views, paths, and other web analytics information ...
1. What technical writing tools should I learn? 2. Should I get a technical writing degree or certificate? 3. How do I get a job in technical writing without experience? 4. I’m interested in technical writing, but isn’t it boring? 5. Would I be good technical writer? I don’t have a background in technology or writing. 6. I don’t have money to buy the tools, but all technical writer jobs seem to require knowledge of these tools. ...
I've noticed a trend lately in the role I play as a technical writer, but I'm not sure if the experience is common enough to be similar to other technical writers' roles, or whether it's just a role unique to my work. I have felt more and more that I'm becoming a "connector." This is both good and bad — but mostly good. Here a few ways I connect people at work: A lot of our users interact through an online forum. We try to drive a lot of ...
A couple of weeks ago, we decided to enroll out girls in Girl Scouts. It turns out there's a Girl Scout office in American Fork, Utah, and numerous active troops in the area. This week we focused on the Painting badge (Brownies) and the Comic Arts badge (Cadettes). For the Painting badge, Callie had to create several different types of paintings: still life, a mood, a painting that uses natural objects as brushes, and a mural. For the Comic Ar...
We recently discovered the Girl Scouts program. I have a colleague whose wife used to work for the Girl Scouts, and I've talked to her about it several times, so the program has been on my mind for a while. But we just haven't made the right connections to get involved. I wasn't sure there was an office or troop nearby. Then we discovered an office in American Fork, and it turns out there are a quite a few troops nearby as well. We joined righ...
