With All This Fuss About Tools, Three Best Practice Attitudes

Although tools seem to play a significant role in technical authoring, some people disagree. Embrace tool learning. Recognize that the 'best tool' is relative. Expose knowledge gaps.

Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2008). Articles>TC>Advice>Software

WordPress’ Biggest Mistake

For a company that recently secured $29 million in funding, has grown from nonexistence to worldwide popularity in just four years, and which has the reputation of being the platform for serious bloggers, it’s kind of bold for me to call attention to its biggest mistake in a post. But I’m convinced that it’s a huge miscalculation on the part of Automattic (the company that leads WordPress). The Automattic team, led by Matt Mullenweg, has about 25 engineers and …. not one technical writer.

Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2008). Articles>Writing>Technical Writing>WordPress

Finding the Technical Writing Community in Utah

In Utah, technical writers abound but are hidden. Utah probably has at least 500 technical writers spread out across companies all over the state (most in Northern Utah), but communication among the technical writers is sparse. The community is a little disconnected.

Johnson, Tom H. List Apart, A (2008). Articles>Writing>Technical Writing>Utah

WordPress as a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Application

I'm amazed at how easily people can make sites look both professional and functional in a short period of time using WordPress. Clyde Parson, the STC-Suncoast chapter in Tampa, just redid the Suncoast STC with a new WordPress theme. It looks pretty cool.

Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2008). Articles>Content Management>Blogging>WordPress

Fourteen Widespread Myths about Technical Writing

In addition to common myths about technical writing as a sellout and fallback career, I can think of at least ten other commonly held myths surrounding the field of technical communication.

Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2008). Articles>Writing>Technical Writing

Users Read Help Manuals Like an Encyclopedia, Not a Novel

Users turn to help to look for a specific question, just as someone consults an encyclopedia for a specific question. No one reads the entire encyclopedia/manual, nor is anyone expected to. Well-written encyclopedias allow users to find information through indexes, tables of contents, alphabetical organization, and search fields.

Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2008). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design>Help

Search Engine Optimize Your Blog Posts to Increase Your Readership

When you search-engine-optimize your blog posts, you can increase your blog’s subscribers in a long-term way. You don’t have to stiffen your prose to apply search engine optimization — you just have to apply keywords in the right places.

Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2008). Articles>Publishing>Search Engine Optimization>Blogging

How I Create Video Tutorials

Creating video tutorials is no trivial task. When you sit down to create 20+ video tutorials for a project, you’re faced with dozens of questions. What screen size should the videos be, what recording tool should you use, what microphone is best, how long should the videos be, what file size is acceptable? Should you use voice or captions? Where will you create the recording? You can create video tutorials using dozens of different methods. There are no official steps to create videos, because situations and audiences vary so widely.

Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2008). Articles>Documentation>Multimedia>Video

How Much Should You Document? Everything? Strategies for an Agile Environment

Some agile environments move so fast, you have to triage what you document because there’s no time to document everything.

Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2008). Articles>Documentation>Agile

FLOSSmanuals.net: A New Wiki Help Authoring/Publishing Tool Hybrid

Flossmanuals.net is a new wiki help authoring/publishing tool hybrid that, as far as I know, is completely unique. The site is more than a wiki. It allows groups of authors to create specific chapters independently. You can then remix the chapters into any arrangement and selection you want through a drag-and-drop interface.

Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2008). Articles>Documentation>Help>Wikis

The Art of the Podcast

A PowerPoint of a presentation about podcasting, and the things to consider when planning to produce an audio podcast.

Johnson, Tom H. STC Proceedings (2008). Presentations>Web Design>Posters>Podcasting

Transitioning from Literary Studies to Technical Communication

A 250 page manual for a complicated product may be more difficult to write than a master’s thesis. It may require a massive amount of deductive and inductive logic, as you try to figure out how the product works. You may spend months interviewing subject matter experts, asking them hundreds of questions about how the product functions, and then hundreds more to clarify their cryptic answers.

Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2008). Careers>TC>Advice

My Tip for Productivity: Tear Up the To-Do List

We all lead extremely busy lives. We have goals, commitments, and an almost endless amount of tasks to complete. Are there any productivity tips that work for you?

Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2008). Articles>Project Management>Workflow

Does Design Matter in Comparison to Content?

Few people have ever commented about my blog’s design at all. The same goes with the music intros for my podcasts. I can change the music each time, and no one ever responds. In contrast, if a post has good content, I see a steady stream of comments. My experience leads me to conclude that content is about 90% important, and design is 10% important.

Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2008). Articles>Document Design>Visual Rhetoric>Writing

Finding a Conversational Voice in Video Tutorials

A voice over is a voice narration from a performer whom you can’t see, who reads a script in an engaging way according to the context of the script. For example, many commercials employ voice overs from professionals. The difference between voice-over performers and announcers, Scott says, is that voice-over performers get outside of themselves, whereas announcers merely read a script.

Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2008). Articles>Documentation>Video>Podcasting

Debunking the Boredom Myth of Technical Writing

Several weeks ago I wrote about my trip to Brigham Young University-Idaho and the presentation I gave there titled “Debunking the Boredom Myth of Technical Writing.” This podcast is a recording of my presentation.

Johnson, Tom H. Tech Writer Voices (2008). Presentations>Writing>Technical Writing>Podcasts

Does Twitter Fit into Your Branding Strategy?

Twitter, often referred to as the water cooler of the Internet, teaches us the art of brevity by limiting communication to 140 characters or less. But unless you can compress instructional content in ingenious ways, you’ll find Twitter limiting as a method for delivering documentation. Instead, Twitter is better used for the following: eavesdropping on customer conversations; putting a personal face on your company; and increasing the reach of your announcements.

Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2008). Articles>Web Design>Marketing>Blogging

Documentation Honesty and Poor User Interfaces — An Ethical Dilemma?

We’ve all run in to situations where we have to document poor user interfaces. As much as we complain and suggest improvements, the project manager decides to go ahead with the interface as is because redesigning it is too costly. When I run into these situations, rather than insult the interface in straightforward talk in the documentation, I euphemize the language (against my better desires) in order to maintain the consistency of the company voice. It just doesn’t sound right to be so frank.

Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2008). Articles>Documentation>Ethics

When Trust Becomes a Characteristic Flaw in a Project

As hard as it may seem, lesson one of technical writing is to break the rules and contact the end user. Conduct a mini-ethnography. Sit with the users. Call them on the phone. Send them emails. Do not let it get to the point where you feel you must go through the PM to communicate with the end user. As hard and uncomfortable as it may be, the consequences of not talking to the end user can be crippling to your help.

Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2008). Articles>Project Management>Collaboration>Technical Writing

Good Designs Have Strong Contrast

Push contrast more than you might be naturally inclined. If you don’t, you end up with conflict. The next time you eat at a restaurant, look closely at the menu. A good menu has a high degree of contrast between sections.

Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2009). Articles>Document Design>Graphic Design

Caught in the Current of Writer River: Building and Participating in Community-Driven Websites    

When hundreds of people engage in content-generation and exchange, impressive results can happen — namely, you find a lot of interesting, accurate content. Writer River doesn’t have nearly enough community to be on par with these sites, but it’s a step in the right direction.

Johnson, Tom H. Intercom (2009). Articles>Content Management>Community Building>Taxonomy

Where I Stand on the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA)

DITA provides the ability to chunk information, to deliver selected topics in a variety of compilations and output to various formats. It allows the passing back and forth of this content among authors regardless of tools. My hesitation with DITA has only been that it’s too early to adopt. But I believe the turning point has come.

Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2009). Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA

A Five-Click Solution to Publishing and Uploading Screen Videos to SharePoint

The quickest video solution for uploading Jing videos to a SharePoint directory. This process requires a few minutes of setup, but once you set it up, it literally takes just five clicks to initiate, capture, and publish a video to SharePoint.

Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2009). Articles>Content Management>Microsoft SharePoint>Screen Captures

Trends in Web Design Involving WordPress

This week I caught up with Debbie Campbell, a Colorado web designer and developer and the owner of Red Kite Creative, and asked her about the latest trends in web design. I’ve been following Debbie on Twitter for a while. This week she posted a few tweets about web design and WordPress, so I asked her to share a little more.

Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2009). Articles>Interviews>Content Management>Web Design