When you are a company dealing with your customers’ most valuable personal information, you need them to trust you. One easy way to do this is to have your documentation flawless (or close to it). Also, performing a test run with a small group of people before releasing it to the masses is a good idea. The group of people should be 3rd party users who can find the mistakes you can’t find (since you’ve read and reread the form 40 times and never want to see it again).
Tag: useful
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Reading Images
There is an unfortunate trend towards using more images and icons and using fewer written instructions (I like to say “words”). Personally, I don’t think it’s obvious what every icon actually is and what it means, especially when I’m in a hurry to do something.
Whenever I go through a Word document with clients and they ask where a section is, I always refer them to the Document Map. Frequently, they don’t know what it is. Do you know what it is?
In short, Document Map displays the table of contents on the left side of your screen. This is helpful when searching for sections in a document even if there is a table of contents (less back and forth). You just have to make sure your text has heading styles applied to it correctly.
To find it and use it, follow the steps below.
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Use Your Words!
Precise word choices are one of the hallmarks of a great technical writer. Even if you don’t have much difficulty picking the right words and phrases when expressing your own thoughts, I’m sure you’ve encountered a situation where you ran into problems interpreting a client or SME’s writing/requests/emails. Here’s some links to some of the handy reference tools that I sometimes use to help me interpret a client’s requests or find the perfect word or phrase. Hopefully these will make a difference in your writing in 2011!