TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Mark Osborne recommended a book by JoAnn Hackos, "Standards for Online Communication." I haven't read this one but JoAnn collaborated with Ginny Redish on a later book, "User and Task Analysis for Interface Design". It's terrific, and I think you'll find it even more useful. Don't worry about the interface design part in the title; it's just as applicable to tech writing.
I agree with Peter Neilson that asking users is useful, but you need to do a lot more than that. For a start, I'd say that watching someone try to perform a task using your procedure is about fifty times more useful than getting them to read it and provide feedback.
Note that audience analysis requires understanding not just users but the tasks they need to perform and the environment they work in.
Stuart
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Free Software Documentation Project Web Cast: Covers developing Table of
Contents, Context IDs, and Index, as well as Doc-To-Help
2009 tips, tricks, and best practices. http://www.doctohelp.com/SuperPages/Webcasts/
Help & Manual 5: The complete help authoring tool for individual
authors and teams. Professional power, intuitive interface. Write
once, publish to 8 formats. Multi-user authoring and version control! http://www.helpandmanual.com/
---
You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- web -dot- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-
