TechComm
-
Why Isn’t a “Help” Helpful Enough?
For the most part of their exploring the product, the users are busy finding answers to their how-does-this-damned-thing-works questions. Why is it still that we are unable to design formats that can make the users’ troubleshooting pursuits easy? Continue reading
-
Don’t Fix What Isn’t Broken!
We all learn. And, here’s the post on one such thing I learned, recently. For one of the projects I worked before I switched jobs last week, I was the only tech-comm contributor who held the dual role of preparing technical content as well as marketing collateral for the flagship product. Until that time, I thought that technical Continue reading
-
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
-
What questions do you ask to SMEs to begin with technical documentation?
During a recent online conversation, someone requested for a list of questions I would typically ask to a subject matter expert (SME) to prepare technical documentation for a topic. Of course, the parameters may vary, but there is still a list of questions that apply across all sizes or complexities of projects. In this post, I Continue reading
-
TechComm and Content Disruption
Vinish Garg recently posted on the content’s role in Disruption. In his post, he shared what the experts had to say on the role that content has to play/currently plays. Here’s my opinion: What is Disruption? Let me first take you back in time. This started when the marketing and branding industry opened the corporate Continue reading
-
Do you create video reviews on newer technologies, too?
Time and again I get to answer the question about what I do for a living. Yes, it does get irritating at times. But, mostly I love answering such questions. This time around, it was a marriage party and the questions were from the father of a curious teenager. “So, I heard you are a Continue reading
-
Connect Those Pesky Dots
“For god sake, once, just once, connect those pesky dots. Can’t you see that I can’t understand anything? Even a word?” That’s what I often say when I look at bad write-ups. I just can’t connect those pesky dots to see what the story is. But, am I the only one who rubbishes write-ups that Continue reading
-
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
-
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
-
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
The Wordsmith 