Ginny Redish — Letting Go of the Words

Anticipate the reader’s questions and then construct your writing as a response. This type of writing focuses you on your audience and gets you thinking about the specific questions, concerns, issues, and other problems your users might have. Each sentence you write should somehow answers those questions — you construct the conversation.

Redish, Janice C. 'Ginny' and Tom H. Johnson. I'd Rather Be Writing (2009). Articles>Interviews>Writing>Podcasts

Interview with Claude Vedovini (Part 1) - DITA

Claude Vedovini is the developer behind the DITA Open Platform. In Part 1, we talk about the DITA OP and other aspects of DITA in general.

Vedovini, Claude. DITA-XML Community of the Rockies (2009). Articles>Interviews>DITA>Podcasts

Interview with Claude Vedovini (Part 2) - DITA

Claude Vedovini, the developer behind the DITA Open Platform, offers some thoughts about trends on the Web such as cloud computing, the usefulness of social networks when starting a small business, and Amazon S3.

Vedovini, Claude. DITA-XML Community of the Rockies (2009). Articles>Information Design>DITA>Podcasts

Five Benefits of Blogger Outreach

Blogger outreach has quickly become an integral part of many brands’ marketing efforts. The blogosphere enables interactive dialogue between bloggers and consumers, and blogger outreach opens the door for conversation between your brand, bloggers and consumers. For any company that is looking to leverage the blogosphere for your marketing or PR strategy, here are 5 benefits of blogger outreach.

Brown, Hillary. Lava Row (2009). Articles>Business Communication>Blogging>Podcasts

Screen Space

A blog and podcast about users, texts and technology.

Bowie, Jennifer L. Screen Space. Resources>Multimedia>Blogs>Podcasts

User-Centered Design 101 (Why User-Friendly is Not Enough)

While system-centered places the system and programmer at the center of the design, and user-friendly considers the users, user-centered design put the user at the center of the design. What better way to design for the real needs, tasks, skills, knowledge, and behaviors of the users?

Bowie, Jennifer L. Screen Space (2009). Articles>User Centered Design>Blogs>Podcasts

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

Refreshable Braille and the Web

Many people have not had the opportunity to see someone use a refreshable Braille device to access the web. I recently videoed Bruce Maguire describing how he uses the Internet with a refreshable Braille display. He also demonstrates finding a book on the Amazon site. Transcript of the video is at the end of this document.

Hudson, Roger. DingoAccess (2009). Articles>Accessibility>User Interface>Podcasts

STC Toronto’s New Five-and-Five Chapter Model

A podcast interview with Anna Parker Richards, incoming president of the STC Toronto chapter, about their event-driven chapter model, in which they replace regular meetings with periodic all-day events.

Johnson, Tom H. and Anna Parker Richards. I'd Rather Be Writing (2009). Articles>Collaboration>Community Building>Podcasts

Visual Design for the Non-Designer

What can a non-designer do to harness the power of visual design without calling professional help? Quite a lot, says internationally-regarded visual designer Dan Rubin. We called Dan to talk about what design techniques are accessible to mere mortals.

Spool, Jared M. and Dan Rubin. User Interface Engineering (2009). Articles>Graphic Design>Visual Rhetoric>Podcasts

Information Architecture Essentials

What happens when, one day, you’re asked into the boss’s office and they drop “the web site” and “information architecture” into your lap? Regardless of your experience, where do you begin? Donna says your first question should be, “Why do we bother to have a web site in the first place?” “What’s its purpose?” She says if you don’t get this out of the way first, you’ll run up against it when you’re further along the trail and it won’t be easy to deal with.

Spool, Jared M. and Donna Spencer. User Interface Engineering (2009). Articles>Information Design>Web Design>Podcasts

Podcast on Getting a Job in Technical Writing, 7 Steps

Although getting a job is the focus of the podcast, I also talk about what technical writers do, how they approach a project, how they decide what to create, and how they generate ideas for tasks. Specifically, I talk about about a project people can work on at tech.lds.org. People can start writing help for the project here.

Johnson, Tom H. Tech Writer Voices (2009). Careers>Writing>Technical Writing>Podcasts