Tech Writer Today Magazine - TechWhirl
Technical writing and technical communications news, articles and resources for technical writers and technical communicators.
IBM’s Michael Hughes opened his first session of the WritersUA conference, Embedding User Experience in the Product Development Life Cycle, by provoking the audience members to show how they add value and get involved in the four stages of product development: Defining Requirements, Design and Validation, Development and Testing, and Deployment and Support. Read more of this technical writing article »
Adam Polansky, recognized as a founding pioneer in the field of information architecture (IA), is an unusual mix of eclectic tactician and IA visionary. Before he entered the IT world, Adam had variously been a member of the military, an illustrator for an advertising agency, and a retail manager, among other roles. Lois Patterson sat down with Adam Polansky at LavaCon to talk information architecture, empathy, user experience & goals for technical communications projects. Read more of this technical writing article »
As the Online Services Manager at Security Service Federal Credit Union, Jay Tkachuk oversaw the creation of an entirely revamped company website, for both traditional online as well as mobile use, using a UCD (user-centered design) approach. Effective design begins with the emotional context. You must satisfy the emotional needs of the user. But effective design also includes a rational context in terms of the sales cycle Read more of this technical writing article »
Our User Experience (UX) industry is moving at such a fast pace that it is sometimes difficult to keep up with new concepts and ideas. When I first started working in the field, the term ‘usability’ did not exist and many of our clients today are still not familiar with the concepts that usability is embracing, let alone with User Experience. Usability is performance driven while user experience is a holistic approach. Read more of this technical writing article »
Editor’s Note: The following piece by Eric and Deb Ray is part of our collection of “classics”–articles that stand the test of time no matter how many technologies come and go. This excerpt is from an original article reprinted with permission from Technical Communication, the journal of the Society for Technical Communication. Originally published in November 1998 [...] Read more of this technical writing article »
While prospecting for information on a Web site that I visit fairly regularly, I recently fell victim to a fascinating Web page trick. The trick took advantage of the kind of reflexive (“programmed”) response we each develop once we grow so familiar with a task that we no longer consciously think about what we’re doing. [...] Read more of this technical writing article »