Technical Writing Blog

Becoming part of a documentation team can be a challenge for a writer who is not experienced in this type of work, as it requires a new set of skills and a very specific writing style and approach. Even if you recruit a writer with prior experience in creating documentation and user guides, you still…

Technical documentation is not just any text. It is a whole new world with its rules and patterns to follow. This article will explain how technical writers can avoid the most common mistakes when writing a user manual. Abbreviations Abbreviations are great. They save us time and effort. We can transmit information faster using abbreviations,…

What do we want from any user manual? Clarity and consistency. And, good looks. How can we achieve this? Well, as far as looks are concerned, you can start off by reading this article on user documentation design. And, there’s a long list of things that can be done to improve a user manual’s consistency…

If you are a native English speaker then the choice between Active Voice and Passive Voice is likely to be obvious to you. But, if you are writing user guides in English or working in an English speaking team while it is not your mother tongue – you should study the vital difference between these…

Any technical writer should know their grammar. Actually, they should know a lot of other things and possess many other skills. But grammar comes first. In case you are wondering about the ‘other things’ a tech writer should be able to do, take a look at this article on 11 skills of a good technical…

Working in support means knowing your company product really good. But, it is kind of hard to be an expert in something that is constantly changing, updating, and growing in terms of functionality, don’t you think? Sure it is. What can make the life of the Support Team easier? Online documentation, of course! Providing customers…

Let’s be honest. Speed is everything these days. If a website (or, an online documentation portal takes just one second too long to load, it can negatively affect your business. And, with the mobile Internet on the rise, online users just aren’t willing to wait for anything. In fact, 47% of people expect a page…

There is a preconception about technical writing that limits its capabilities to instructional and training material solely. In reality, though, that is just one of the many layers. Yes, software documentation and user guides help convey a technical writer’s ideas to an audience, but they also make way to interesting marketing opportunities. Think about it…

It seems capitalization is becoming sort of a problem. If you take a look at multiple websites, you’ll see the same word capitalized in different ways. I mean, is it Microsoft or MicroSoft? Or do we just write microsoft and call it a day? Some user guides capitalize each word within a title, some leave…

It’s time to accept the facts: you can’t do it all by yourself. As skilled and task-oriented as you may be, juggling multiple projects at once can take a toll on you. You need to let others help you and take some of the pressure off your shoulders. However, delegating tasks isn’t as simple as…