Pattern recognition for tech comm

Chris Atherton and I will present a session on pattern recognition for technical communicators at this year’s Technical Communication UK conference near Oxford. The conference takes place from September 20 through 22. Adding up Chris’s interest in evidence-based information design and her background in researching and teaching human cognition with my experience in designing and [...]

When redundancy is good: Online help navigation

Redundant navigation can help users find what they’re looking for. Redundancy in documentation is usually bad: When you have the same content (in different words) in two places, you pay twice for localization – yet you probably only remember to update one of the items. So you risk inconsistencies, extra costs and general havoc. Not [...]

Top 3 reasons to attend Congility 2011

Relevant topics, great speakers and a price that’s hard to beat (for at least one person) make Congility 2011 a great conference to attend. Conferences are a great way to keep in touch with fellow tech communicators, content strategists, UX experts, e-learning pros and user assistance speecialists – as I’ve pointed out before. Congility 2011 [...]

How (not) to use documentation checklists

Checklists can be great aids, but they won’t guarantee that you create good and complete documentation. – That’s my experience, and I’d appreciate your input whether you agree or not. The Valuable Content Checklist Content strategist Ahava Leibtag published the “essential Creating Valuable Content Checklist (TM)” last month, along with a step-by-step guide: With this [...]

@techwriterkai popular posts, part 2

My blog is taking a spring break and is due back on May 9. I thank you for reading and commenting. Your support and feedback is the lifeline of this blog and makes it all worthwhile! As I’m taking a break, I invite you to check out (or revisit) a few of my all-time popular [...]