Technical Writing Blog

What’s one of the most important things in a user manual? Its structure! Usability largely depends on how well a technical document is structured. There are certain basic elements that bring logic to your docs. We are going to talk about the best practices of their usage, so, keep reading. TOC A table of contents…

Every member of the techcomm community loves technical writing for one reason or another. Otherwise, why would they stick to this industry, right? Help authoring is quite a special occupation that requires a certain personality type and skill set, we already spoke about in the article on the perfect skills for a technical writer. What…

Famous life coaches and positive thinking advocates advise focusing on the solution, not the problem. This idea works in technical writing, as well. Aside from descriptive help topics, the rest of the content is supposed to provide ready solutions to clients. Maybe somebody reads technical documents to get acquainted with a product, but mostly people…

If you have seen the last season of ‘The Game of Thrones’ then you should remember why Tyrion thought it was a good idea to make Bran the King of the Seven Kingdoms. He said that Bran had the best story. And people love nothing more than a good story. While Jon Snow would argue…

There are several ways of how clients can interact with your company. The most obvious way is through your product directly. That’s truly something your company will be known and recognised through. But, there are other things, too, like: Your corporate website Technical support User manuals As a techcomm blog, we are mostly interested in…

People come to technical writing from various fields and backgrounds. Quite often these people can be connected with other forms of writing. Journalists, bloggers, and others who have mostly dealt with more creative forms of content can feel trapped in the help authoring routine. They feel smothered by the lack of creativity, or, to put…

Video content drives modern marketing. It enables you to show the essential stuff in a matter of seconds. All information is thoroughly picked and composed in such a manner that a prospect doesn’t need to look for things themselves. It is all crispy and clear and packed into one video. Videos can add a lot…

If we look up the word ‘checklist’ in a dictionary, we will find something like ‘a to-do list’. So, the first thing that comes to mind is planning. And, rightfully so, the easiest way to use a checklist in technical writing is for planning purposes. We will talk about that and also show you a…

Let’s talk about reviewing technical documentation. This topic is discussed in the techcomm community a lot since it is the cornerstone of a good help writing workflow. Before analyzing approaches to reviewing, we would like to draw your attention to the fact that having a convenient environment tailored to reviewers’ needs is the first step…

We get used to certain things to the point where we can’t tell whether they are good or bad. It can be hard to evaluate a help authoring tool you have been using for a while as you have gotten accustomed to its features and know the workarounds for when things go south. We have…