Analyzing Your Users and Needs Before Creating the Help Deliverables; Interview with Nicky Bleiel

In this podcast, Nicky Bleiel says we should talk to as many users as we can — conducting on-site visits, sending surveys, gathering information from Marketing, Support, and other departments — so we can have a better understanding of our users’ needs and the formats and mediums that will work best for them. After completing this audience and needs analysis, we can then go out and create the deliverables that will best serve our users.

Bleiel, Nicky and Tom H. Johnson. Tech Writer Voices (2008). Articles>Interviews>Documentation>User Centered Design

How to Create User-Centered Documentation, Interview with Joe Sokohl

In this podcast, Joe Sokohl explains how to create user-centered documentation by contacting, observing, and interviewing users to gather information about what types of information they use and the help deliverables they actually want.

Sokohl, Joe and Tom H. Johnson. Tech Writer Voices (2008). Articles>Interviews>Documentation>User Centered Design

Karen A. Schriver: The InfoDesign interview

Karen Schriver is the author of Dynamics in Document Design: Creating texts for readers, an extensive, multidimensional portrait of what readers need from documents and of ways to integrate word and image in order to better meet those needs. She is the former co-director of the graduate program in technical communication and document design at Carnegie Mellon University. Her company, KSA Document Design and Research, helps organizations improve the quality of their paper and electronic communications through strategies based on research and best practices.

Bogaards, Peter J. InformationDesign (2005). Articles>Interviews>Document Design>Visual Rhetoric

The State of Structured Authoring in Technical Communication

In this podcast, Sarah O’Keefe of Scriptorium Publishing explains the results of their recent survey about the state of structured authoring in technical communication. In the survey, they found that 84% of respondents are either thinking of moving to structured authoring, are in the process of moving to structured authoring, have already adopted structured authoring, or are undecided. Only 16% of respondents said they were not moving to structured authoring. She also discusses other survey results, such as the adoption of DITA and mistakes people make in moving to structured authoring.

Johnson, Tom H. and Sarah S. O'Keefe. Tech Writer Voices (2009). Articles>Interviews>Document Design>Podcasts