The LugIron Software Blog

Most often, documentation is a post-mortem: “Here is feature X, this is what it does, this is how you use it.” The value of documentation shouldn’t always be about writing about what a product does and product teams should realize that the process of writing the documentation can and should impact the design of the features. [...]

Technorati Tags: OnlineDocumentation, OnlineHelp, TechnicalWriter, TechnicalWriting, UserCenteredDesign, UserEngagement

I came across this very interesting post by Paula Stern over on the WritePoint Staff Blog. Paul very clearly identifies the growing challenge for technical writers that I discussed in my previous post, Growing Happy Users–One Customer at a Time. The traditional “product manual” is going the way of the dinosaur because users are being [...]

Technorati Tags: CommunityBuilding, InformationDeveloper, InteractiveDocumentation, TechnicalWriter, TechnicalWriting, UserEngagement

In a previous post I mentioned that an engaged user, a customer who engages with a company providing them input, feedback, and insight, is more valuable than a passive user. This post by Larry Hawes over at the Gilbane Group Blog is interesting because it discusses a recent study by IBM of data from 400,000 [...]

Technorati Tags: Collaboration, CommunityBuilding, CustomerEngagement, SocialCustomers, SocialNetworks, TechnicalWriter, TechnicalWriting

Technical writing is a profession in transition. The way companies think of, use, and manage the people who help users make sense of and use products is absolutely changing. A lot of companies have started to use the term “information developer” to describe their technical writing positions. I don’t really care what label the profession [...]

Technorati Tags: CommunityBuilding, InformationDeveloper, TechnicalWriter, TechnicalWriting, UserEngagement

In the United States today is [Administrative Professional's Day](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrative_Professionals%27_Day), also known as Secretary’s Day, in less politically correct circles. These hardy folks work day by day to make our jobs easier, and you probably take for granted one particular task that they take on. How many documents do you write and collaborate on in any [...]

Technorati Tags: AdministrativeAssistants, Collaboration, DocumentCollaboration, WordCollaboration, WordTrackChanges