Information Design
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Once upon a Time in Technical Writing
Stories are the commonest way the ethics, histories, information, insights, and knowledge have passed on to the younger generations. Through its multiple forms, storytelling focuses on building touch points to get messages across: Something that we too do as technical writers. I try to find the threads that storytelling shares with technical writing. And, here’s Continue reading
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The Next Big Thing: Workshop
Next month, I am conducting a couple of workshops at the STC India Annual Conference, in Pune. I like to talk about technical communication. And, at the conference, I’ll meet a lot of those would like to talk to me about this faculty of knowledge. Also, information design, as a topic, has always fascinated me. Continue reading
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How do I make information-communication effective?
Information communication is a cyclical process, much like the usual purchase decisions that you take. So, if we can wear the shoes of our users and understand their requirements, we can write better documents or even project the information-communication more effectively. In this blog post, I try to find those effective checkpoints using the purchase-decision Continue reading
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Heuristics in Information Design: So that you get only what you need
Heuristics, unlike what most of us know, is not ONLY about the trial-and-error way of doing things. Heuristics are those basic guidelines that mostly cover the generic application of common sense. And, I don’t see a better faculty than technical communication to apply this technique. Here’s what I have to share. Continue reading
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Three Tips for Effective Localization
In this post, I take a closer look at the localization project in which my team and I assisted. I take cues from this project, and the similar ones that I have done previously, to discuss the top-three points for localization. This post is special to me, because it has helped me unfold those chapters Continue reading
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The Writing Principles
Have you ever come across a poorly written write-up? Have you ever felt that you could have written better? A couple of write-ups, which I read recently, drew my thoughts on writing about writing. I have always believed that anyone can write. But, if everyone can write, can everyone become a writer? I have explored Continue reading
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Information Projection: Where Meet Information Architecture and Information Design
The new capability that we introduced into our flagship product helped me learn a lot about information architecture and information design. But, this post is about information projection. As I understand, it lies on the overlap of information architecture and information design. The post is also about the layers of information projection elements and the Continue reading
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For Your Information
There are a lot of things that drive our searches. Therefore, it is true that we often search for things that we don’t know. Or that we begin searching for one thing and end up finding another. And, such information is not a goal, but a by-product. But wait; there is lot more to this Continue reading
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The Ps that remained
The fact that I am a marketing graduate has had a considerable impact on the way I handle product documentation. I largely take things from the user’s perspective: Unlike the way a technical grad would handle documentation, I mostly like seeing it from the eyes of a marketer. While I was recently busy answering the Continue reading
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The Key Elements in Technical Communication
The bent towards information design is on account of its applicability – A picture, as they say, is worth a thousand words. The use of graphics minimizes the use of content. Rather, it squeezes the underlying message of the content into a graphics. Despite the usually observed bent of mind, I believe that the key Continue reading
The Wordsmith 