Tag - Technical Writing

19 Jun

How Can Technical Writing Training Help Aspiring Technical Writers?

A career in Technical Writing in India took off in last two decades and it became a conscious career choice for job-seekers only in the past 10-12 years. Before that, almost all the technical writers in India found their careers in technical writing, accidentally.picture of an instructor-led classroom training.

Many aspiring technical writers are not sure why do they need training in technical writing. The common perception among the untrained and inexperienced writers is that all they need is a skill to write well to become good writers. Besides the gifted talent for writing, there are a number of things that need to be acquired through learning and practice. Here’s why they must go through an instructor-led technical writing training program.

  1. The Industry Needs Ready Professionals

Most first-generation technical writers in India are self-trained. They never had the privilege of getting trained by expert technical writers or technical writing trainers. The learning was primarily community-based and slow. Today, the industry knows what it wants from technical writers and the writers need to be on their heels as soon as they are hired for a job. A formally trained technical writer is equipped with all the knacks and tricks of the trade.

  1. There Is A Great Deal To Know Even Within The Niche Profession of Technical Writing

As they say, Technical Writing is a Niche. Yes, it is. But there is whole lot of stuff to be learned before one could claim to be a complete technical writer. There is so much variation in language tone, writing style, presentation for each type of documentation. The complexity does not stop here as there are scores of tools to work with. And you must know about where and how your document will be presented to your audience. It is your responsibility to ensure that your work is accessible to your end-users. An accomplished and experienced technical writing trainer would be certainly able to prepare you for those ‘tech’ challenges in technical writing.

  1. Everyone Wants To Grow Faster

Once you get the “technical writer” tag, you want to keep growing at a steady pace. This growth comes easier if you do not spend more time learning at your job. If you know your trade, you are likelier to be more efficient. In the long run, you will get bigger, better challenges that lead to a natural, smooth career progression.

  1. A Certificate Adds Weight

A technical writing certification will make you stand apart from the frivolous job-seekers who are not focused on technical writing profession. Your certificate will begin with making that distinction for you. Not just that, your interview will most likely be focused on what you learned during the technical writing course, giving you more opportunity to talk about readiness for the job.

  1. To Plan Career Growth, Better

Once you are an accomplished technical writer, you will be able to plan the next moves, better. There are a number of avenues that open up for experienced technical writers. You can decide to continue to be a technical writer throughout the career just for the love of writing or you can move into project management. With a technical writing certificate, you are aware of all the options and you can spot the opportunities of becoming a business analyst, domain expert, or a project manager. Be your own master!

  1. Learn What You Can’t

At your job as a technical writer, you will be asked to perform tasks in accordance with your key responsibility areas or project requirements. In that limited space, you might learn whatever you can but there will be a limitation. You may not even know your options of learning and trying out different skills within the ambit of technical writing. During a technical writing training course, you will get a chance to lay your hands on a variety of tasks that require different skills and knowledge of specific tools or techniques. So, you get to learn even what you may not get to do in a typical technical writing job.

  1. Mentoring And Career Guidance From Trainers and Peers

It always helps to have a mentor during those distressing stages of career when you need that expert advice on a career move or a technical solution. The trainers or the faculty members at the training institution often act as life-long coaches and gurus. The batch-mates during the training usually go on to become good peers as you tend to grow along with them through the career. With a set of professionals to help, you would never be short of bright ideas.

The reasons listed above are sufficient to speak in the favor of choosing to get prepared before you dash into a technical writing job. Ascezen Consulting offers certificate courses in Technical Writing, Creative Writing, E-learning, and Business content writing. Get in touch for details.translate english to italian

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22 Nov

Documentation Development in Agile Development Models

Documentation Development in Agile Development Models

In the previous post, we discussed about the integration of Documentation Development Life Cycle (DDLC) with the Waterfall Model of Systems Development. Now that the software engineering is evolving to bring in more speed, efficiency, and tendency to provide quicker insights into the final outcomes, there are newer methodologies gaining popularity. Agile Development is one such approach that talks about having increments of working software developed in some defined time periods to give more clarity and garner confidence of developers and customers alike.

With the change in perspective, documentation development needs to change suit too. Let’s see how does the technical and user documentation get affected while progressing in an Agile fashion. To understand the change solicited by the Agile Development process, let us understand what it demands.

There are many Agile Development models such as Scrum, Extreme Programming, Agile Modeling and so on. For this post, I would consider Scrum model to explain Agile Development process.

The essence of Agile Development lies in more emphasis on collaboration, communication, incremental tangible outcomes, and active customer participation. However, it doesn’t completely ignore the importance and role of processes, documentation, and extensive planning. It puts more focus on what needs to be built rather than aggressively tracking how it is being built. Agile Development is all about being receptive to change and adapting quickly. It also puts more responsibility on team members to communicate, collaborate, give ideas, identify risks, propose solutions, set goals, prioritize tasks, and track the status for one’s work products.Image depicting the stages in an Agile Software Development model

To be precise, the Agile Development models split the main project objective or goal into small and smaller increments that would be developed over a number of time frames such as a week to a month, during the estimated project duration. For every defined cycle, also called a Sprint, each member has to identify his work product or software increment that is complete in a way and can be used.The tasks are identified in a very interesting manner by depicting them as “user stories” wherein a user should be able to use the work product to accomplish something.

Communication and collaboration take the center stage. The team meets before the start of every sprint to plan for it and then once again after they finish the sprint—to review the progress, challenges, risks, identify the lessons learned and the best practices for future. But that’s not all they have for communication and collaboration. They meet on a daily basis in a very short meeting that gives a chance to share about the progress, bottlenecks, and to plan when and where they can get help.

Transparency is the main keyword. All Agile Developments models ensure that all the team members know what the other person is doing. It helps in proper coordination and better planning.

So, the take away for the documentation engineers is:

The technical writers can see the bigger picture right through the beginning as they are included in the sprint planning meetings.

The technical writers get to interact with all team members or any specific member, who could help with the required information. This eases the requirement understanding and requirement gathering challenges.

At every change initiation, they get a chance to discuss the impact on documentation and plan for it in time.

The most important aspect for technical writers is time management and planning the activities that aren’t dependent on work product in any sprint. Some examples of such activities could be preparing templates or stylesheets, and so on. They have to ensure that they schedule such activities either in early sprints where there is more of analysis and design underway or whenever they finish their work product sooner in a sprint.

As for the Documentation Development Life Cycle (DDLC), it shrinks to fit in every single sprint and follows an iterative and incremental approach.

Overall, working in an Agile Development model gives more comfort, support, and visibility to the technical writers and they don’t seem to work out of an island.

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14 Nov

Mapping Documentation Development Life Cycle (DDLC) with SDLC

Software Development Life Cycle is a sequence of phases or logical stages in the course of development of an idea into a software application or a product. It is commonly abbreviated as SDLC. A well-known traditional approach to SDLC is known as Waterfall Model. The Waterfall Model lists the stages in the life cycle as:The_Waterfall_Model_software_engineering_ascezen

  1. Communication (Project Initiation, Requirements Gathering)
  2. Planning (Estimating, Scheduling, Tracking)
  3. Modeling (Analysis, Design)
  4. Construction (Code, Test)
  5. Deployment (Delivery, Support)

For any software application to be developed, the development team isn’t just constituted of software engineers, analysts, and architects. It also requires people to test and document the processes as well as the product. The group that works on creating and maintaining documentation is known as Documentation or Technical Publications group and it is composed of Technical Writers—people who can create Technical and User Documentation.

The Technical Writers also follow a development cycle for creating documentation, which is known as Documentation Development Life Cycle. The Documentation Development Life Cycle (DDLC) maps with the SDLC such that the entire product team works in close coordination to complete the development, adhering to a common project schedule. Modeled on SDLC, the DDLC has somewhat similar stages as that of SDLC. However, the duration of stages varies according to the difference in availability schedule of inputs for various stages. Let us begin with taking a look at the stages in the DDLC.

The DDLC stages, as understood by Technical Writing team at Ascezen, include the Image depicting stages of Documentation Development Life Cycle (DDLC)following:

  1. Understand Requirements
  2. Design
  3. Develop
  4. Review
  5. Finalize
  6. Publish

The activities to be performed during each of the stages are listed below:

  1. Understand Requirements
    • Understand the Product or Application to be developed
    • Gain an understanding of the Domain or Subject Matter
    • Understand Client Requirements for Documentation
    • Study Legacy Documentation and Writing Style Guides used by the Client
    • Provide Content Consulting or Evangelism
    • Propose Documentation Deliverables and Tools to be used
    • Prepare Effort Estimate
    • Propose Team Size and Composition
  2.  Design
    • Prepare Templates and Stylesheets
    • Prepare an Outline or the Table of Contents for documents to be created
    • Create Content Strategy for Single-sourcing or writing for multiple user roles
    • Create a Documentation Project Schedule
  3. Develop
    • Gather Information: Read Design Specifications ,Interview Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)
    • Create Content Drafts
    • Create and Insert Graphics
    • Format the Content
    • Generate Output(s)
  4. Review
    • Language Review
    • SME or Technical Review
    • Client POC’s Review
  5. Finalize
    • Incorporate agreed changes after each review
    • Finalize the Content
  6. Publish
    • Integrate the Documentation with the Product or Application
    • Send for final publishing or distribution

Mapping Documentation Development Life Cycle with SDLC

Mapping the Documentation Development Life Cycle (DDLC) with the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) isn’t as straightforward as it seems. Some of the reasons are:

  1. Documentation starts quite late in the SDLC: Most often, the last few to get on board a project are the documentation people. Even if they aren’t, the requirement understanding stage for technical writers is extended till the time they get to read a formal requirement specification document or see a prototype. However, it doesn’t happen like that always as sometimes technical writers get to document the design specifications too.
    Image depicting the mapping of stages in SDLC and DDLC
  2. Documentation can’t finish as soon as the Software Development: It is only when the entire software application is developed that the documentation can be given its final shape. Even after all the content in created, there are activities such as language and SME reviews, creating index entries, generating and testing final outputs. All this may take some time until we can announce the completion.
  3. Trivial Changes in the Application may call for Critical Documentation Updates: Small changes such as change in UI resulting in relocation of a button or field, modification in input type on a form, reorganization or reordering on menu may account for an unexpected volume of change across the documentation. It might also require recapturing and replacing numerous screenshots.

With the above factors, the DDLC may not have all its stages completely go hand-in-hand with the SDLC stages. The Requirement Understanding stage of DDLC goes on till the commencement of Construction or Development phase of SDLC. Typically, there would be a lag in Documentation Finish dates and the DDLC would extend the duration of SDLC, too.

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05 Nov

The Potential of Minimalism in Content and Website Design

If you want to develop a mobile version of any website, it will be a good idea to go with a minimalist approach. Quite a few critics cringe at the notion of minimalist design, presuming it will make the overall design and layout boring. The concept is also misinterpreted as black text on a white background devoid of any effects or graphics. However, all these assumptions are very far from the reality. It must be noted that minimalism does not involve dull or uninteresting techniques or features. The main objective of minimalism is to present different elements and features in their primary role, without the need to involve unnecessary frills and distractions. In reality, several usability experts have a view that minimalism will enhance the impact and effectiveness of website designs.

Some Advantages of Minimalism

  • Most usability experts believe that minimalism will definitely rule the roost in the future. The concept offers several interesting and unique ways to simplify uncomplicated website designs without much effort. Minimalism will enable users to use their smartphones and internet to access most of the web applications without any technical glitches emanating from compatibility issues.
  • The main functionality of minimalism is to restrict the intended message to its bottom line so as to provide clarity of ideas and expressions. Users may begin to complain as little as possible after being exposed to the powerful results of minimalism.
  • The concept will certainly find favor with mobile web users. It will enable users to download the content faster.
  • Users will be able to access the content in different layouts on different platforms with superior quality and increased smoothness.
  • Smartphone users browse internet on their phones quite frequently and they might easily get irritated if they have to needlessly navigate to many web pages or unrelated information before they get what they are looking for. A minimalist website design can easily eliminate inappropriate clutter of information or webpages.
  • Minimalism helps in brand building too. It is very important for a brand to stay consistent in order to be remembered for being neat in expressions. By removing clutter that is considered to be perplexing, a brand can definitely stand out in the crowd.

Mobile manufacturing companies can get benefited with the assistance from usability professionals to adopt minimalism in design. Today, mobile devices and components come with smaller bandwidth, slower data internet connectivity and smaller screens. All these technical restrictions can be effortlessly overcome by a unique minimalist design. The technology will unquestionably enhance mobile website designs and other technicalities in the future.

Minimalism in Writing

“The more you say, the less people remember. The fewer the words, the greater the profit.”
– Francois Fenelon

Most popular writers, authors, and poets have believed that brevity is very important to engage one’s audience. There, all we want to say must be said in brief. Let’s find out how some of us tend to get lengthier. Some writers create content using 2nd person singular tone. It is considered very friendly. Certainly, it results in passive voice, which tends to detach the reader from the action because the sentences become lengthy and boring. This type of writing might confuse the readers as well. Therefore, it is better to create understandable active voice constructions to appeal the readers’ minds.

The current norm is minimalist writing. This type of writing is considered to be straightforward without being lengthy and uninteresting. The overall idea is to include appropriate information needed for the readers – no more, no less. The writer should create the content in a comprehensible, direct active voice.

Minimalism Unchained   

Some people have an opinion that minimalist writing includes very few words or sentences. But in reality, minimalist writing is not easy. You need to explain the entire information or concept involving very words or phrases. The idea is to use less words and sentences but they must have a bigger impact on the mind of the readers. You need to question any phrase or word that you are about to use to know whether it is essential to communicate your intended message. You might need to think, review and rewrite to be sure of being brief and complete in communicating.

Some Tips for Minimalist Writing

  • Keep sentences brief and straightforward.
  • Infuse coherence in successive sentences to keep the flow.
  • Consolidate the cluster of short sentences in meaningful paragraphs.
  • Do not discuss several topics in a single paragraph to avoid confusing the reader.
  • Ensure that paragraph length is appropriate.
  • Always prefer active voice.
  • Use images or pictures to convey a powerful message instead of explaining it endlessly.

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28 Jun

Editing versus Writing

All editors are writers but all writers aren’t editors.

I am quite sure most editors will agree with what I said above. Editing is different from writing and it is much more than proof-reading or reviewing. Those who don’t agree with that opinion, may be actually editing the content under the garb of reviewing and it’s time they start calling themselves Editors. With time, experience and bigger responsibilities, writers are poised to assume the role of an editor. It begins with prolonged exposure to a particular genre of writing, subject matter and the writing style followed. Obviously, when you know your content’s context in and out, you become an authority and can visualize the result of the smallest variations in tone and verbiage. With that, comes the attitude required to become an editor. You start looking at “drafts” and start making “edits” to make the copies read better and explain everything precisely and correctly. You begin to identify and remove the excesses. You look at documents from readers’ perspectives. You are the biggest critic.

Let’s try to answer this – How do you plan your editing?
I think you have to be pretty sure about the expected outcome. You try and match the content drafts with your visualization, make edits, rephrase, paraphrase, reorganize to get an edited version. An editor essentially intends to ensure the following:

  • Correctness of information
  • Accuracy of language
  • Logical flow of information
  • Ability to grab and sustain readers’ attention
  • Conciseness of content
  • Adherence to style guidelines

A point of caution for wannabe editors is that you should respect a writer’s style of writing and expression if it doesn’t come in the way of delivering the right quality. All of us know that we can say one thing in so many ways. However, some editors may want to stick only to their style of writing. This can hamper creativity and leave the writers with little motivation to do something new.

On the other hand, writers need to study the edits, make notes, ask questions, and prepare a personal review checklist. Using the checklist would help reduce the number of editorial changes that writers see in their future drafts.

Editing is also Mentoring
Editing is at best a feedback mechanism for writers. It tells them how to put it better and make it pleasure-to-read. When editors explain their edits either by entering descriptive comments within documents or explaining verbally while being respectful, they are bound to influence the writers positively and they are likelier to see rewarding results soon.translation english to french

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21 Mar

What is Technical Writing?

What is Technical Writing?

Technical writing is a form of writing that is used in fields such as computer software and hardware, engineering, medical science,  finance, technical writingconsumer electronics and many more.

Technical writing is a branch of communication that provides instructions on how to do something regardless of what the task is, for example, how to operate computer applications, medical procedures or mechanical equipment. The assistance is generally provided through web pages, diagrams, videos, help files, Microsoft Word or text documents. Technical writing involves the creation of support or help documents that can be clearly understood by readers.

Technical writing is performed by writers, who are inclined towards learning new technology and then simplifying it for other people. The technical writers usually begin such work by learning the purpose of the document that they will create, gathering information from existing documentation and from subject-matter experts. Technical writers do not need to be subject matter experts but it surely helps if they become one while working on a domain or suite of products for a long period. A good technical writer needs strong language and communication skills and must understand how to communicate with technology.

Technical writing is generally perceived to be synonymous with online help and user manuals though it is not limited to just that much. It also includes documents product troubleshooting guides, release notes, installation guides, marketing documentation, tutorials, e-learning modules, web content, legal disclaimers, business proposals, and white papers.

The objective of technical writing is to clearly convey the required information to audience in a way that the topic can be understood correctly. Technical writing is a way of analyzing, generating and managing information about various products and technical procedures that need to be explained. For big technical writing projects, a technical writer has to work with user interface designers, software programmers, testers, business analysts, software architects, domain experts, managers, customers, and above all—the end users. But for smaller assignments or in smaller organizations, a technical writer is expected to do the tasks largely by himself. First and foremost thing for a technical writer is to recognize the target audience. Technical writers who know the target audience can advise and execute solutions to the problems that no one else can recognize.

Technical writers must possess the aptitude to comprehend correctly and then be able to clarify it in the best possible manner. A technical writer must have good technical knowledge and good hold over the technical lingo, capability to write in a simple and concise manner with excellent research skills, expertise in various tools such as Microsoft Word, Adobe Robohelp or Framemaker.

Technical writing can be a very useful form of writing and communication for projects, lab reports, standard operating procedures (SOPs), instructions, proposals, and many other forms of professional writing.

For those seeking a career in technical writing, it may prove beneficial to pursue a formal training in technical writing to develop the skills and gain confidence. It can help engineers improve their skills and be able to communicate with individuals, in a better manner, to explain what they have to do, for example, a lot of the work that electrical engineers do is largely based upon technical documents, such as designing audio equipment, which uses many different parts, this could help improve both the ability to understand and write the documents.russian english dictionary

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27 May

Content is Important

Content is the soul of every communication transaction. It isn’t just about communication these days. The world has moved on to effective communication. Effective communication is about conveying the right information to the target audience in the most lucid and appealing way. The essence of good content lies in the way it is encoded and presented, keeping the target audience in mind. To understand the audience is just the first step and then starts the journey of communication, leading to a never-ending fruitful relationship.

In this dynamic world, all transactions have to be swift and effective. These transactions, most primarily, include sharing information, assisting users, and transmitting new ideas and concepts. So, eventually it means communicating with a purpose, a goal, or a definite motive. The world knows the communication genres that are employed today as Technical Writing, Content Writing, and Instructional Designing, e-Learning and so on. Nevertheless, the underlying principle remains to know the user and communicate to convey the message.

 

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