Quick Reference Guides as Christmas Gifts I was surprised and mildly pleased this weekend to see my sister-in-law Karin give a quick reference guide or "cheat sheet," as she called it, to her grandma for her birthday. The guide focused on accessing and sending email in Gmail. Grandma was grateful and elated to see the work and detail that went into the guide, which was laminated and narrow enough to prop up next to her [ancient] computer....
After releasing documentation for a calendar application, we received so many questions and frustrated feedback from users that I started thinking about publishing a page in the help describing what the calendar doesn't do. I'm in an agile shop, so the calendar is still undergoing development, and many of the features people want are eventually coming; other features are problematic due to bugs; other features are frustrating by design. :...
Some of my projects include community-involved documentation. When you work for a church, it's not hard to find dedicated members willing and committed to sacrificing a few hours for a higher cause. To harness community efforts, I gathered up a large pool of volunteer names and formed a listserv. I communicated project needs with the listserv members and asked for help. Despite some contributions, the majority of volunteers are hindered b...
If you haven't seen it yet, check out Best Careers 2011: Technical Writer - US News and World Report. It doesn't amaze me that technical writer is listed in the top 50 careers. Technical writer appeared as a top 50 career in 2006 and 2009 in CNN Money. Each year there's a lot of controversy about the description, but this year, some things are especially intriguing. US News and World Report says as a technical writer, "you'd work with com...
One of my readers, Shweta, asks the following question: I am a Technical Communicator working in a software services company in India. I have been reading your posts daily from a long time now. I am developing end-user documentation for an access control product. The current application that I have is huge and so is the user manual (550 pages, which I am sure not even 55 users will read). It also has an over exhaustive online help (not co...
Integrating a WordPress blog into your website is one of the most common requests I receive as a WordPress consultant. Whenever someone asks me to do this, I usually recommend moving the entire website into WordPress. That way you can manage all the content in one place. The user experience is more seamless too. If you're interested in having me convert your website into a WordPress-driven site, contact me. Here's a 5 minute screencast s...
Voiceover techniques 1.1 Finding a Conversational Voice in Video Tutorials 1.2 The Problem with Speaking Conversationally in Video Tutorials 1.3 Finding an acoustic environment (Voiceover) 1.4 Sounding natural (Voi...
One part I enjoyed about my Xtranormal videos was writing the script about the insane spreadsheet that the project manager foists on the technical writer in an effort to track, manage, and contain the writer with busy work. That's how PM templates have always seemed to me, which explains my reaction when Derek, my colleague, told me he was creating a user education template for a new project management methodology -- I wasn't excited abou...
Adobe Illustrator and Adobe InDesign integrate in a cool way when it comes to images. Let's say you have a layered image in Illustrator. When you insert that illustrator .ai file into InDesign, you can turn the layers on or off within InDesign itself. This control with the layers allows you to use the same image multiple times without duplicating it or exporting it to another format. Here's a screencast showing how I implemented this inte...
Over the past several years, I've trained a lot of people on WordPress, through individual one-on-one training, seminars, workshops, and conference events. Most of the people who want to learn WordPress have plans for blogging. They think blogging requires you to understand the technology before they can jump in. But the technology is easy -- learning how to navigate and publish content with WordPress is a no-brainer. The hard part is cre...
Wiki: Grow your Own for Fun and Profit, by Alan Porter Alan Porter's Wiki: Grow Your Own for Fun and Profit, published by XML Press in October 2010, provides an excellent introduction to wikis. This is a short, easy-to-read book spanning about 150 pages. Alan has a keen sense of organization and liveliness in his writing. He carries the gardening metaphor throughout the book, ending with five solid case studies and an extended response to...
One of the sites I'm working with lately at my job combines a forum (vBulletin), blog (Joomla), and wiki (Mediawiki) into one experience. Each of these tools does a great job at what it was designed to do. They're three separate platforms skinned and linked together. I used to think the site was a hodgepodge of software platforms, but now I see that these three resources can harmonize together in an amazing way. A possible workflow of in...
Listen here: Last week we recorded an Intermountain-STC chapter event, "Educational Programs and Workplace Practices," held in Layton, Utah. The event included a panel of academics from local technical communication programs in Utah. We had six programs represented: BYU Provo, Westminster College, Utah Valley University, University of Utah, Utah State University, and Weber Utah State University. About 15 students and a...
Tactics for Survival: A technical writer's field guide to overcoming the forces of petty project managers and broken IT environments Last week I attended an STC chapter event that consisted of educators and practitioners discussing educational programs and workplace realities. Most of the discussion focused on tools, which is a constant topic in these discussions. What tools should educators teach? How do they gain access to tools? Ca...
I've been thinking lately about my brand. I've always hated this marketing term, but the word "brand" does help answer a question. When you think of me, what comes to your mind? I've written about a lot of different topics on this blog, everything from findability to podcasting, blogging, technical writing, flare, wikis, screencasts, project managers, content organization, and more. My content is diverse enough that when people ask me to ...
