Helping the world explore and understand content management and technical communication
A positive user experience can turn a sales prospect into a user, and a user into an advocate. The documentation we write is a critical part of that user experience. The words, pictures, and videos we create are as much a part of the product as the code or components used to build it. Continue reading ...
As a technical writer, I follow a style guide. I use the Microsoft Manual of Style, but I admit I'm not married to it. Robert Levy seems to back me up when he asks if being slavishly consistent is also plain foolish. On other not-so-foolish fronts, we offer the latest on content strategy thinking, trends in UX, the practice of CXM, and some fun and interesting Career & Life tidbits. Continue reading ...
Traditionally tech comm has tried to steer clear of marketing and all its works. Many tech writers still seem to have a strong aversion to anything that smacks of marketing, regarding it as either fluff, or outright dishonest. Here’s the problem, though. The buyer is a user too, and what works for the novice user, or for the expert user, does not always work for the buyer. Continue reading ...
If anyone were to ask me what online references I use the most during the course of a workday, they might be surprised to learn that acronymfinder.com ranks near the top (after TechWhirl.com and Thesaurus.com of course). Maybe it’s just me or an age factor, but I'm finding more and more initialisms and acronyms creeping into what I read, what I write and what I edit. I think perhaps I didn't eat enough alphabet soup when I was a kid. Continue reading ...
Tech Writer This Week heads into some new territories, with a new topic area, and some controversy in our old standbys. First in the standbys is Technical Communication. I'd venture a guess that most people think of technical writers as the quiet sort (I do my best to fly under the radar). But being quiet doesn't mean we shy away from controversy. Peruse User Experience and then Content Strategy & Curation. Dive into our new area of Customer Experience Management, and finish off with some Career and Life goodies. Continue reading ...
Along with the cliche that "No one reads the manual," it is also cliche that technical writers are often the last to possess knowledge that is critical to their projects. Tech Writer This Week aims to demolish the cliches, by providing some timely and trending information about stuff that matters to technical communicators. Technical writing as art, going beyond the words in communication, user experience and wearable computers, adding value to content curation, and so much more to explore. Continue reading ...
Last week Google dropped a bomb by announcing they were killing off Google Reader, which *was* Craig's main tool for curating items for Tech Writer This Week. So, along with everyone else who depended on Google Reader, he's scrambling to find a replacement. In the meantime, he did find time to curate some great content on page level content organization, API documentation, usability, terminology and structure and much more. Continue reading ...
Crazy, busy technical communication, user experience and content folks always manage to find time to provide useful, fascinating and even controversial topics to blog about, and Tech Writer This Week likes to curate them to give you other crazy, busy professionals stuff to muse over. Continue reading ...
Happy last day of February, in which we look forward to better weather, and enjoying all the great commentary we can pull together. Refreshing and useful stuff from awesome bloggers in tech comm, content strategy and curation, user experience, and the ever-present and always necessary career and life. Continue reading ...