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News and Views from Expert Support

The Values of Effective Technical Documentation

Recently, a Content Wrangler newsletter arrived from Scott Abel that many of us here at Expert Support found to be inspiring and validating. Scott’s article is very much worth a read. He describes some easy steps you can take right now to heighten the credibility, trustworthiness, and effectiveness of the documentation you’re writing. While Scott

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Technical documentation. And Pancakes?

One of our writers was recently asked to reorganize a pile of technical documentation in hopes of making it easier to use, more intuitive to navigate, and generally, more effective. At Expert Support, this isn’t an uncommon request.  These kinds of assignments can appear daunting at the onset. But experienced writers leverage techniques from the

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The Data Is In:
High-Quality Documentation Matters!

The data is in: High-quality documentation matters. When I recently attended the Write the Docs conference in Portland, and TechDocsCon at the Open Source Summit in Seattle, two presentations made this point abundantly clear.  At both conferences, I saw a fantastic presentation by Michelle Irvine, a technical writer with Google Cloud. Michelle has been working

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Improving Documentation at Scale

On December 7, 2023, Expert Support’s CEO, Paul Gustafson, will be presenting at Write The Docs Australia 2023 in Melbourne. Paul’s presentation, Improving Documentation at Scale, describes a recent initiative started to improve the effectiveness of open source software, the scalable approach, and lessons learned so far. You can learn more about the conference here, and

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Webinar promo image

Unpacking the Business Value of Technical Writing

[UPDATE: Due to technical difficulties with the webinar platform, this event has been postponed until January 10, 2024.] If you’re a career technical communication professional, you undoubtedly encounter people who don’t understand or appreciate the business value of technical writing.  Sometimes, these people are in roles where such understanding is crucial. To be successful, you

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Effective technical overviews turn skeptics into customers.

Effective Technical Overviews Turn Skeptics into Customers

Effective technical overviews turn skeptics into customers The technical overview is a critical component of any developer-to-developer documentation suite. Regardless of whether the technology is a fundamental platform technology (such as a programming language) or a simple, incremental product (such as a plugin), the technical overview orients new developers who are just getting started with

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New course: Let’s Write an API Reference

Expert Support (https://expertsupport.com) is creating a training program for the next generation of technical writers. As part of that effort, we’re inviting members of our community who are working on API documentation to participate in our first ever course that is open to outside participants. Do you aspire to be a world-class API reference writer?

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Handling Information Overload

In a previous post, we discussed the context gap—the difference in understanding between technology experts and technology users—created by innovation. One challenge in bridging this gap is the sheer volume of information available to technology users. When new users attempt to find their way through this vast ocean of information, they inevitably make poor choices.

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Infographic of the Context Gap

How Technical Writing Solves the Context Gap

Technical writers, documentation managers and product managers often reach out to us when trying to gain the support they need from their engineering colleagues, managers and executives. They often find that gaining such support isn’t always easy or, in extreme circumstances, even possible. They discover that some of the smartest people on the planet have

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