Technical Writing Digest
September news, articles, books and events are right here!
Autumn Technical Writing Conferences
Autumn is here, and it’s a great time (when you’re fresh after your vacation) to learn something new and update your skills. So, it’s high time to buy a ticket for a technical writing conference because many of them will be in October.
Write the Docs Conference
Write the Docs brings everyone who writes the docs together in the same room: Programmers, Tech Writers, Support, Designers, Developer Advocates, and more. We all have things to learn from each other, and there’s no better way than sitting together and talking. If you missed the conference you can watch the video here.
The GOV.UK docs review system
The hardest thing about documentation is keeping it up to date. One thing that helps is having a formal system to make sure you regularly review the content. At GOV.UK employees have given all their docs pages a “review-by date”. After this date, the content must be reviewed. More information is here.
Open Source Documentation
Dustin Moris Gorski shares his opinion about open source documentation. Here are some key takeaway:
- I put all initial documentation into the README.md file inside my Git repository.
- Almost two years-, nearly 50 releases-, 47 total contributors-, more than 800 GitHub stars and more than 100 merged pull requests later the project’s simple documentation approach hasn’t changed much, and to be honest I have very little motivation to do something about it.
- The main reason why I’m not particularly excited about migrating Giraffe’s documentation to a different place is because I actually believe that the current way of how documentation is handled by Giraffe is a perfectly well working solution for its users, its contributors and myself.
The full article is here.
New Free Ebook by ClickHelp
The main goal of a technical writer is to create user-friendly documentation. In order to do this, you should figure out the level of knowledge of your target audience on the subject in question. When creating documentation for professionals, you need to really go in-depth. If you are writing for novice users, make sure to cover all the key moments and leave out more complicated stuff. But how to be sure that your documentation will be clear for your target audience? Here is where readability and text metrics step in.
In this ebook the ClickHelp team will tell you about:
- Why metrics are important in tech writing.
- How to measure the effectiveness of your documentation.
- Top 5 text metrics to consider for user documentation.
- How to review technical documentation.
- Where to get all the necessary metrics.
- And much more!
9 simple but powerful UX writing tips for designers by John Moore Williams
This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s worked in web, product, or any other form of digital design. Many designers have noted the value of leading the design process with content, the power of words in interfaces, and the similarities between UX design and writing.
So, in light of the industry’s growing acknowledgement of the value of writing as a design skill, I thought I’d share a few of my favorite writing tips in an easily digestible, visual way.
Read the full article here.
What did you find interesting in September?
