Our latest post for the STC’s blog has been published today – Letter from the UK: The Dark Art of Persuasion. The reason why Science and the dark art of persuasion interested me, was because we’re noticing the techniques of persuasion appearing in some Web-based Help. Indeed, we cover some of these techniques in our advanced… Read more »
Category: Technical Documentation
New case study – Helping HCC deal with the size and complexity of embedded systems documentation
You’ll find a new case study on the Cherryleaf Web site: Helping HCC deal with the size and complexity of embedded systems documentation. HCC Embedded is a high tech software corporation that develops specialist software for deeply embedded systems, such as file systems, USB and networking software. Dave Hughes, CEO of HCC, realised that with over 100 different… Read more »
It’s sold out – Trends/advanced technical writing techniques course on 31 January
Our Trends/Advanced Technical Writing Techniques training course on the 31st January has already sold out. Sorry if you were planning to book. We had bookings from both large organisations, such as IBM, Sage and Sony, and individual freelance Technical Authors. Given the amazing demand for the January course, we may schedule another public course towards… Read more »
The future of technical documentation is more about psychology than technology
In the quest to offer better forms of user assistance, most experts in the technical communications profession propose technological solutions: using XML, intelligent and adaptive content etc. to present essentially the same type of guidance as has been provided for the past 20 years. We believe there has been a change in the relationship between… Read more »
The over optimistic user
On Dara O’Brien’s Science Club (BBC 2) this week, neuroscientist Dr Tali Sharot explained “Optimism Bias”, suggesting that our brains may be hard-wired to look on the bright side. Here is her TED presentation on the Optimism Bias: Nearly everyone is optimistic they will never get divorced, and they are an above average driver, when… Read more »