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Unified Content That Serves the Customer: Let’s Come Out of the Dark Ages

As user advocates, we technical writers should be outraged at the hoops our users have to jump through to find the information they need just because different kinds of content are created by different departments. All too often each department pushes content out to customers in their own ways, for their own reasons, which means we’ve created a mess of the entire user experience. Users ought to find everything they need, from training videos to operating system requirements, from high-level content to detailed tasks, from reviews to troubleshooting guides, in one place. I know, what a radical concept: make things easy. Continue reading ...

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Tech Writer Tips & Tricks—DITA

Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is a sweeping revolution in technical writing and training. Consider carefully, and if you choose to make the switch to DITA, it’s already time to start planning. And it’s no simple task. It’s easy to become overwhelmed by the forest and lose sight of the trees. DITA implementation is a big undertaking, but doable if you stay focused on some salient points it becomes a lot easier. Continue reading ...

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Tips & Tricks: Large Teams and Documenting a Constantly Changing UI

Working on a large development team with multiple writers, provides some clear advantages over the lone writer. At the same time, a large team presents some unique challenges. Here are seven tips for managing the tech comm effort when the UI is a constantly moving target. Continue reading ...

Context-sensitive Disaster: Designing the Difference Between Online Help and Print Materials

Editor’s Note: This is a reprint of an article originally published in 2000. However, many of the key concepts retain a great deal of value. My first epiphany about online help struck while I was browsing through the latest release of a popular Windows program. After exploring for a few minutes, I stumbled across an [...] Continue reading ...