This week’s update on technical communications and the TechWhirl community is supported by Platinum sponsor ComponentOne & their Doc-To-Help Help Authoring Tool http://bit.ly/doc-to-help
The TechWhirl gang has returned from a great WritersUA conference in Memphis, with pages and pages of notes that are already being turned into articles about the latest and greatest in user assistance, lots of photos on Pinterest, good memories of the home of the Blues, and newfound appreciation for the role of ducks in modern society.
Meanwhile back on the home front, Geoff Hart provided an informative Primer on Gestalt Theory and Visual Design, and Whirlers engaged in discussions both practical and conjectural on the email list.
You still have plenty of time to vote in this week’s technical communications poll on factors impacting your user assistance work—feel free to add comments on any or all of the listed factors, or tell us what we missed.
Have a great weekend.
-The gang at TechWhirl
In Case You Missed it: This Week @ TechWhirl
New features and articles on TechWhirl.com:
- WritersUA Session Summary: Embedding User Experience in the Product Development Life Cycle, by Lauren Hart
- WritersUA Session Summary: Getting Started with User Assistance (UA) for Mobile Applications, by Ashley Brown
- Technical Communications Poll: Factors in User Assistance Development
- WritersUA Conference: The Story of User Assistance, via Storify
- Technical Communications Primer: Gestalt Theory and Visual Design, by Geoff Hart
Tech Comm News:
- Tech Writer This Week: March 15, 2012
- Corel Releases VideoStudio® Pro X5 with HTML5 Support
- Colosa Introduces ProcessMapper for Social BPMA
- ECM Provider DocFinity Signs Alliance Agreement With Xpertdoc
Technical Communications: What You’re Talking About
A quick shout out to our Technical Writers and their discussions in our email discussion group:
- Craig Cardimon wanted some opinions “Regarding the “Next” button,” and Whirlers were more than willing to oblige. What might have been a rehash actually brought up some points some of us might miss, such as handling these references when the UI contains both buttons and links, whether the button is a “standard” on the UI, if it’s part of a wizard, and yes, the experience level of the audience.
- Jeff Scattini needed to know “Is “untar” an acceptable verb?” within the context of software delivered by TAR files. Consensus by responders was that among UNIX/Linux veterans, it would be well understood, but that outside that arena, not so much. Particularly since “untar” has specific meanings in languages other than English. The more generic, and completely understandable “extract” was the most popular recommendation.
- Stephen Arrants unearthed an example of “More Low Paying Jobs,” that raised the eyebrows of quite a few list members who wondered about a rate of $13 an hour for a technical documentation editor. Perhaps it pays to think about several alternatives before passing judgment: it may be an entry-level or low-skill position with a misleading title; the recruiter may be low-balling, or the company may have an internal candidate in mind. Nonetheless, it’s at least anecdotal evidence that many companies still do not value technical communications at the same level as other professions.
Social Media and the Chance to Follow TechWhirl:
- Our Google Plus Page – what’s happening behind the scenes | http://goo.gl/SO0R4
- Will you be our Friend? Please, you know you want to click | http://goo.gl/tDrW7
- Want all this TechWhirl goodness a few characters @ a time | http://goo.gl/itjDg
- Updates from TechWhirl delivered to your email in box | http://bit.ly/tjshxU
- Or, try our RSS feed (great on Flipboard) | http://goo.gl/msLzu
SPONSOR-Luv
We want to send a very special “thank you” to our sponsors for their support.
Platinum: Adobe Systems Incorporated
Gold: ComponentOne Software, Madcap Software
Silver: Society for Technical Communication (STC), Vancouver Island University
