Archives

Top Authors and Books from My 2020 Reading Challenge

The last several years, I've written up my reading list. Last year, with the pandemic on, you'd think I'd have read more than in other years but I didn't. I read less than I have in the last 4. Like…

  • Key Concepts:
  • Filed under: Blog
  • Venues:

Problems upgrading your Arbortext Styler stylesheets from 6.1 to 7.0?

Quite by accident, we noticed that some stylesheets can have issues when upgrading to 7.0 from 6.1. A day or so ago, Liz was working with some stylesheets that hadn't been touched since mid 2016 when she published her books….

  • Key Concepts:
  • Filed under: Blog
  • Venues:

Teaching Martians to make a sandwich–How Technical Writers can improve patient safety

There's a well-known exercise to experienced technical writers: How do you teach a Martian to make a sandwich. It's so well known that we talk about it as an exercise in best practices for user experience and modern instructional design….

Adepters – What is it and how do I find it?

Are you an Arbortext user? Have you heard the word Adepters and wonder what it means? Adepters is the name of the original Arbortext user mailing list which was launched in 1996. At that time there the web was still new, so…

Button, Button, Who’s Got the Button?

Technical writers are paying more attention to UI/UX because documentation is part of the user experience. Technical writers, who explain user interface elements and design how-to documents for user tasks and procedures, know when a design choice will have repercussions. We…

Subscription licenses are here to stay

Updated: May 2017 The software companies of world has decided the answer to that question is yes. I first heard about subscription licenses from Adobe back in 2013. Then Microsoft followed. For good or bad, whether we like it or not, it's here…

  • Key Concepts:
  • Filed under: Blog
  • Venues:

12 tips from UX designers that Techcomm folks should know too

Next to API docs, UI/UX is one of the fastest growing sub-domains in technical writing. Not surprising, because documentation contributes to the user experience and explain how to use a product's user interface.In May, I spotted an article by Robert Hoekman,…

  • Key Concepts:
  • Filed under: Blog
  • Venues:

Released: Arbortext 102 Best Practices for Creating Arbortext Styler Stylesheets

Announcing the release of Arbortext 102: Best Practices for Creating Arbortext Styler Stylesheets. The second book in the Arbortext Monster Garage series, Arbortext 102 is the second book about Arbortext and the first book about creating and publishing with Styler. Written…

  • Key Concepts:
  • Filed under: Blog
  • Venues: