Some years ago, I used to suffer from developer neglect, or to use a more scientific term, from a kind of information exclusion complex. You know what I’m talking about. Developers make updates to the interface, often at the last minute, and don’t let the tech writer know what changed. As a result, the help is wrong and out of date. It’s a frustrating experience from the writer’s perspective.

Information exclusion is fairly common. Just last week I learned about an application that had a new version nearing release in a week, but the developers hadn’t told me about it. I documented the previous version, and although the developers made the help button more visible, they never told me they were releasing a new version. They never mentioned to me what they had updated. Read the rest of this entry »

Alistair Christie recently published a podcast about Unscripted Screencasts and Flare Extensibility. In the podcast, he considers whether scripts are necessary for corporate screencasts –  a good topic for exploration and testing. But he also gets into something a little more interesting: extending Flare with jQuery.

jQuery is the new Javascript. It provides smooth functionality that shows and hides components, slides objects around, and animates graphics in a sexy way. As an example, ProPhotoBlogs’ support section incorporates jQuery functionality. And the drop-down menus on Will Sansbury’s site are also jQuery driven. Here are a few jQuery animation effects. And slide-down effects. And fade effects. Read the rest of this entry »

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Lyn Worthen presented to the STC Intermountain chapter tonight on running your own business as a technical communications consultant. She covers almost everything you need to know as a consultant, including rates, billing, contracts, marketing, taxes, business structures, hours, salary, tools, locations, niche services, portfolios, client communications, and more.

Here’s her presentation description:

Unlike the consistent schedule, workload, and wages of a 9-5 technical writing job, going it on your own as a consultant or contractor is a lot like riding the tide. Sometimes the tide is “in” and you have plenty of work to keep you happily tapping away on your keyboard; the projects are queuing up, the money is flowing, and all’s right with the world.

Other times, the tide is “out” and you find yourself walking on a desolate beach, staring out at the horizon, waiting for your ship to come in — and, if you’re lucky, picking up the occasional small job still lurking in a hidden tidal pool; money is scarce, and as the siren song of Corporate America tempts you back into the relative stability of captured employment, you question the wisdom of continuing to go it alone.

And then there are the “tsunamis,” those times when you have more work than one person should ever be expected to handle; yet in spite of the fact that you’re barely keeping your head above water, you’re reluctant to say “no” to any of it because you don’t know how high the floodwaters will rise or how long the drought that is sure to follow will last.

About Lyn Worthen

Lyn Worthen’s company is Information Design Co: Technical Communications Consulting, based in Utah and serving local, national, and international clients. Lyn is a member of the STC, the Utah Women Tech Council (WTC), and National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO). You can find out more about her through her Linkedin page. To contact Lyn, send her an email at lynw@xmission.com.

This Wednesday, Jan 20, there’s an Intermountain STC Chapter meeting at 7 pm. in the Sandy library. Lyn Worthen will be speaking on running your own technical communications consulting business. Here’s an excerpt from her description:

Unlike the consistent schedule, workload, and wages of a 9-5 technical writing job, going it on your own as a consultant or contractor is a lot like riding the tide. Sometimes the tide is “in” and you have plenty of work to keep you happily tapping away on your keyboard; the projects are queuing up, the money is flowing, and all’s right with the world.

Other times, the tide is “out” and you find yourself walking on a desolate beach, staring out at the horizon, waiting for your ship to come in — and, if you’re lucky, picking up the occasional small job still lurking in a hidden tidal pool; money is scarce, and as the siren song of Corporate America tempts you back into the relative stability of captured employment, you question the wisdom of continuing to go it alone.

And then there are the “tsunamis,” those times when you have more work than one person should ever be expected to handle; yet in spite of the fact that you’re barely keeping your head above water, you’re reluctant to say “no” to any of it because you don’t know how high the floodwaters will rise or how long the drought that is sure to follow will last.

Everyone is invited, both STC members and non-members. Cost is free (since it’s held in a public library). Read more details here.

Scriptorium is presenting a free webinar on the DITA features in Madcap Flare this Tuesday at 11 a.m. EST. Here are the details:

Presented by Sarah O’Keefe, this webcast demonstrates using MadCap Flare to create WebHelp from DITA-based content. Topics covered include:

• Importing DITA content into Flare
• Map file handling
• Cross-references and links
• Relationship tables
• Conrefs
• Conditional processing

By the way, you can keep up with other upcoming webcasts from Scriptorium by subscribing their newsletter, keeping up with their site’s feed, or clicking the Scriptorium graphic in my sidebar.

Some months ago I created a half a dozen quick reference guides for an application that would have a potential audience of thousands of users (after it cleared the beta phase). The size of the audience gave me hope that I would actually create documentation to be used by more than a handful of people outside the internal workings of my organization.

I created the guides in Adobe InDesign because it seemed to make sense for the situation — the application was relatively simple, and there were just a few roles. I crafted the layout and design carefully, branding the guides with the same color and feel as the application. I meticulously ensured each task was described with concision and accuracy, and I limited the text for each guide to one double-sided page to avoid intimidating the users. During each application update, I reviewed the guides against the new use cases and updates and made sure the instructions matched the new functionality. Read the rest of this entry »

Given that it’s a new year, a lot of people are writing about trends and predictions in technical communication. Ellis Pratt at Cherryleaf has an interesting post on the Top 10 Trends in Technical Communication for 2010. Larry Kunz has a post on Technical Communication Trends in 2010. Sarah O’Keefe chimed in with 2010 Predictions for Technical Communication. And Ben Minson has Ten New Year’s Resolutions.

Rather than predict or comment on trends in our industry (which I already did here), I’d rather describe the actual directions I’m going in 2010. Read the rest of this entry »

At a department Christmas social the other week, we had a special meeting following lunch. During the meeting, people spontaneously shared their feelings about working for the Church or other thoughts they had. More than a dozen people stood up.

Although it wasn’t called such, the meeting was similar to a “testimony meeting,” which is something that Mormons do once a month for their church meetings. During these meetings, rather than listening to several members give talks, anyone who feels the desire can spontaneously walk up to the front podium and say pretty much whatever they want for as long as they want. This can be both exciting and dangerous, or dreadful and dull, depending on who gets up and what they choose to say.

Some testimony meetings are inspiring. Others are filled with long spaces of tense silence. At work, whenever we allow people to share their thoughts or feelings at the end of meetings, it highlights the interesting mixture of church and work — a mixture that feels new and sometimes awkward.

As I read up on the subject, it turns out that spirituality in the workplace is nothing new. In fact, it’s a huge trend in business management. Marques et al even say that “spirituality is the new competitive edge” (Spirituality in the Workplace). Read the rest of this entry »

One of the tough paradoxes of the technical writing field is that you can’t get a job without experience, but you can’t get experience without a job. Or so it seems.

A reader recently wrote to me explaining how she decided to write manuals for her existing job as an account maintenance clerk, even though the task of writing documentation wasn’t in her list of required duties. Doing so transformed her role. After learning more about her experience, I asked her to write a guest post, so here it is.

Post by Sarah Pruitt

Deciding to become a technical writer was easy. But finding the experience and the time has proven unforgiving. My job is not based on writing; in fact, writing is rarely needed. Between working full-time at a bank doing account maintenance (which is equivalent to data entry and entry-level coding) and going to school part-time in the evenings, I don’t find much time to create writing samples for a portfolio.
Read the rest of this entry »

Most people take time off during the holidays, so if you don’t, you end up mostly sitting alone at work, wondering why you’re not taking time off too. I wanted to follow Penelope Trunk’s advice about pursuing your pet projects while working during the holidays, but instead I was trying to finish a project with an end-of-year deadline.

The project I’m working on is critical, but it has only about 3 to 4 users, most of whom are already familiar the application. One of the users even drives the design. The manual I’m writing, which is nearly 200 pages, is mostly a safety measure for business continuity planning. I don’t expect anyone will ever read it.

It’s a project I managed to procrastinate for months, working on other projects, even outside the scope of my regular assignments. The main deterrent, I believe, was my perception that no one needed the manual. The users seemed to be getting along fine without it.
Read the rest of this entry »