Category: Process

Categories
Blogroll Business Captivate Language Marketing Process Rants Uncategorized Useful Links Water Cooler Stuff Writing

Agile Development and Technical Writing

For additional information regarding Waterfall/Agile development and how it impacts technical writing, please refer to previous blog posts written by Eric Sedor and Shaun Kelly.

Moving a product out the door to capitalize on market demand is a necessity – it’s simple economics! Consumers demand constant product improvements. This “out with the old, in with the new” mentality has led many successful companies to switch from Waterfall development  to Agile. What does this mean exactly? For the uninitiated, use this simple analogy. Waterfall development can be compared to a marathon. All software features are built in one long process and then errors are fixed. Agile development is more like a series of sprints. Software is released in a series of small iterations. Each release includes a few added features, and errors are corrected along the way rather than at the end. As you can imagine, the switch to Agile development completely shatters the status quo and roles of people associated with the development teams. This led us to wonder: Specifically, how does the switch to Agile impact the role of technical writers?

Continue reading “Agile Development and Technical Writing”
Categories
Blogroll Business Marketing Networking Process Training Uncategorized Water Cooler Stuff Writing

The Three Basic Elements of Technical Communication

When clients tell me that they can write their own user manuals because, after all, they say, they already know how to write, I’m reminded of a quip from an old friend, frustrated by his software developers’ inability to complete a payment application on time: “Why does it take so long? It’s just typing.” Sadly, I sometimes think, people think the same about technical writing: It’s just typing. Which got me thinking: What does a good technical writer have to know to be a good, dare I say, great technical writer?

Continue reading “The Three Basic Elements of Technical Communication”
Categories
Blogroll Flare Language Process Rants Uncategorized Writing

Why is Technical Writing so Difficult?

Technical writers are a rare breed. To be successful in this profession, you have to be patient, know how to communicate, and, last but not least, understand technical concepts. These tough demands have been the inspiration for this article, the third and final, in what we like to call our technical writing “rant topics.” See the first two in the triptych, “What’s Wrong with the Passive Voice” and “Why is Consistency Important.”

So, what makes technical writing such a challenge?    

Continue reading “Why is Technical Writing so Difficult?”
Categories
Captivate Language Process Rants Uncategorized Writing

Why is Consistency Important?

It’s not like technical writing isn’t already incredibly boring, so why does it have to be consistent? Such is the typical complaint about what we at Shoap do to earn a living. So how important is consistency?

While we sometimes fantasize about people grabbing one of our documents and cozying up to the fire to spend some quiet hours learning how to use a new piece of hardware or software, the reality is starkly different. As they used to say about Ivory soap, 99.44% of the time the only reason people crack a user guide or click on online help is because they’re stuck: they can’t figure out how to do something that they need to do – and need to do immediately. 

Consistency means you can find information quickly and understand that information when you encounter problems. Let’s see how.

Continue reading “Why is Consistency Important?”
Categories
Business Marketing Process ROI Tools Uncategorized Writing

RFP Nightmares. Had Enough?

In an earlier article (http://www.shoap.com/rfp-responses-go-technical), we discussed the importance of responding to RFPs with correct, easy to read and understand responses. Several of our readers wondered if there were any tools that could help them address the arduous task of responding to RFPs. This article is for them.

Unquestionably, there are more onerous tasks than responding to a big, fat request for proposal (RFP). Unfortunately, I just can’t think of anything. People who have to do this for a living spend countless (and thankless) hours, ensuring the response is correct and flawless. These responses can go for hundreds of pages, require inputs from various and sundry departments within the organization, and are under tremendous time constraints. It’s stressful just thinking about it. Many companies, however, are facing this nightmare head-on by investing in software that automates the process. Leave the copy/paste method behind.

Continue reading “RFP Nightmares. Had Enough?”
Categories
Language Process Tools Training Uncategorized Writing

See, Technical Writing Is Good for Something by Robert Pudlik

I have little recollection of how I decided to become a technical writer. I’m not even sure how I found out that technical writing was a thing people did. I followed some roommates from college to Atlanta from Connecticut in the fall of 1993. I was a pretty good writer and I had always been a “computer nerd.” Today that might conjure up visions of Red Bull fueled hackathons. When I was growing up it meant reading operating system manuals. For fun.

Continue reading “See, Technical Writing Is Good for Something by Robert Pudlik”
Categories
Computer Languages Process Screencasting Tools Training Uncategorized Writing

How Waterfall/Agile Development Impacts Technical Writing by Eric Sedor

“Waterfall is dead, long live Agile,” many voices cry, heralding a transition in the software industry from heavyweight engineering efforts to an almost sports-like scrimmage. Waterfall didn’tkeep up, they complain. Projects turned into congested pipelines and out of desperation to reclaim fluidity, the entire cycle broke down into an environment of iterative re-development that gave birth to Agile. Increasingly, developers collaborate in short sprints to rapidly address evolving concerns rather than as construction crews working from blueprints. What does this new era mean for technical writing as part of software development? More specifically, what is expected of an Agile Technical Writer?

Continue reading “How Waterfall/Agile Development Impacts Technical Writing by Eric Sedor”
Categories
Process Training Uncategorized Writing

Why Technical Writers Scroll

In a recent issue of the Shoap Technical Reader, I commented on my reaction to a usability test in which I had participated (“Why Technical Writers Are So Weird”). The test was for one of our writer’s web UI development classes. He created an application to create a response to an RFP. His observations can be found here: http://superawesomegood.com/2012/03/31/searchers-and-scrollers/.

Continue reading “Why Technical Writers Scroll”
Categories
Business Marketing Process Tools Training

What Is Gamification?

You may have heard the term “gamification” floating around and wondered, “What is that?” The answer: Gamification is the new buzz word representing the idea of incorporating gaming concepts and techniques into non-game activities in order to drive a desired behavior. Marketing campaigns can use game mechanics to drive customers to their websites, sales agents can participate in games to drive competition and increase sales, and in our industry, documentation and training groups can build game-like training materials to fully engage the learner.

Continue reading “What Is Gamification?”
Categories
Business Process Tools Uncategorized Writing

Why Bother Writing Requirements?

We’ve recently been approached by two different companies about writing requirements. The first, a small company, wanted to develop a dashboard to replace a third-party application it was using. The owner, who had most of the information in his head regarding what the new dashboard should look like, what it should do, etc., suggested we send one of our writers to his location to study the existing dashboard, spend a little time with him and some of his key people to learn more about the functionality the dashboard needed to support, and “capture” this information so he could give the requirements to a developer or offshore the project.

Continue reading “Why Bother Writing Requirements?”