Can a Technical Author be a master of more than one trade?

Technical Authors are normally seen as masters of writing user documentation, but their skills are not often applied to other areas of the business. For example, it’s usually the case our clients for software documentation are different from our procedures writing clients. However, we’re currently working for a client where we began by editing a… Read more »

Adapting to change in technical communication

Technical Authors work in a profession where they must be able to adapt to changes in the technology sector. Often, the changes relate to the outputs they need to create or the authoring tools they use, and most Technical Authors adapt quite easily to the new situations. However, sometimes there are also changes to writing styles or the… Read more »

Summary of the findings from our 2016 technical communications survey

We asked Technical Authors to complete a survey into the issues and challenges they face in 2016 and beyond. There were four main themes that stood out: Issues around working in an Agile environment. A need to develop skills in creating training screencasts. This included how to use tools, structuring and presenting content, and the ideal… Read more »

The lone-liness of the UK Technical Author

We were looking at some of the survey results from the ISTC’s 2015 survey of technical communicators in the UK. The survey reported: 37.5% of the respondents worked as the sole technical communicator in their organisation. 76% worked in an organisation with six technical communicators or fewer. This means, in the UK, it’s harder to justify… Read more »