The LugIron Software Blog

Can good documentation drive sales? Yes, I think it can. What? You think I’m crazy? Well, not only do I think good documentation can have a positive impact on customers in need, but I’m also convinced that good documentation can have a positive impact on your bottom line. We’ve already discussed how documentation can positively impact [...]

Technorati Tags: CustomerEngagement, Documentation, TechnicalWriter, TechnicalWriting, UserEngagement, UserExperience

I’ve previously discussed the evolution of technical writing and documentation on this blog, in fact that’s one of the primary topics I tend to orbit around. Regular readers will by now understand my fundamental belief that technical writers are an important and underutilized asset to most businesses; however, I also believe that technical writers have [...]

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

Companies are always trying to build loyal customers and I’ve talked about how to connect with users and the benefits of an engaged user in this blog before. So when I ran across Kevin Stirtz’s recent post, For More Loyal Customers, Manage Your Points of Experience, I thought I’d share it along with a bit [...]

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

There’s a lot of talk about how social media is going to change the way companies interact with and support their customers and there is evidence that by making this change companies can realize significant value from the community they build. I’ve been wondering about the ROI of such investments and came across a presentation [...]

Technorati Tags: CustomerEngagement, CustomerSupport, SocialCustomers, SocialMedia, UserEngagement

I’ve been browsing a lot of online documentation lately and in a past life I spent an enormous amount of time worrying about how my users were interacting with documentation. It never ceases to amaze me how bad most product documentation is, especially when the documentation is published in a half-measured attempt on the web. [...]

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

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

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