1. Should I User Third-Party Software In My Website?
(Web Design/Web Design Tips and Articles)

... design is a very artistic enterprise. Whatever the case, the philosophy that everything on a website should be proprietary costs designers time and money. The reason is simple: reinventing the wheel—creating ...

2. Free Alternatives to Expensive Technical Writing Software
(Technical Communication/Technical Communication Lessons)

... that technical writers use. It wasn't just that they took a lot of time to learn, it was that they cost so much money. The three most commonly used software tools--Adobe FrameMaker, Adobe PhotoShop, and ...

3. How to Write Editing Comments For Authors
(Technical Communication/Technical Communication Lessons)

How to Write Editing Comments For Authors  I spent some time as a technical editor for the US Army. I was responsible for editing very technical materials produced by engineers, scientists and technicians ...

4. Using Comic Books for Technical Instruction
(Technical Communication/Technical Communication Lessons)

... in the subject. This strategy allows you to hit more readers than otherwise, and it saves you time from writing a different document for each set of readers. There are drawbacks of course. One in particular ...

5. What is a Technical Writing Portfolio?
(Technical Communication/Technical Communication Lessons)

... writing. The next natural question is, "Do I need one?" YES! YOU DO!!! As I've stated many times before, and as I firmly believe, technical writing, indeed all of technical communication (graphic design, ...

6. How to Gain Experience in Technical Writing
(Technical Communication/Technical Communication Lessons)

How to Gain Experience in Technical Writing  This is another one of those questions I'm asked all the time by both students and young professionals starting out. In any industry its hard to break in, but ...

7. 5 Important Books in Technical Writing
(Technical Communication/Technical Communication Lessons)

... to know how to design the interfaces of communications (not just computer-based) while keeping users in mind. Often writers don't have time to conduct their own foundational user-testing, this guide helps ...

8. Quickly Getting into Technical Writing
(Technical Communication/Technical Communication Lessons)

... There was a time, up until about 10 years ago, when that's all one needed to get into the field. Anyone with an English degree and a fair amount of knowledge about technology could get a job as a tech ...

9. Using Old School Web Design
(Web Design/Web Design Tips and Articles)

... that linked to pages relevant (sometimes) to the portion of the image being linked. Elements such as these were common in the recent past, but haven’t been used (with purpose and by professional programmers) ...

10. Usability Testing: Using Eye-Tracking Software
(Usability/Usability Tips, Lessons and Articles)

... or is sustained on a page. To understand what a user is fixating on, you need to understand where the user's gaze is sustained for a brief period of time. Those locations display what user's are paying ...

11. Web Design: Font and Page Size
(Web Design/Web Design Tips and Articles)

I want to spend some time on a series of articles on web design usability practices. I call this series, the HTML Museum. I hope to update it with articles that address past web design practices and why ...

12. How to Write Policies and Procedures
(Technical Communication/Technical Communication Lessons)

... passing on his knowledge was easy. But when he suddenly found his business doing well, and he had to hire a few more employees, he had little if any time to pass on what they needed to know. Thus, if this ...

13. Technical Communications and Programming: The Economic Reasons for Commenting
(Technical Communication/Technical Communication Lessons)

... on maintaining their own software (1; 2; 3). Labor, specifically the amount of time spent by maintenance programmers understanding another person’s code, obviously accounts for a large portion of the cost. ...

14. Technical Communication and Programming: Internal and External Documentation
(Technical Communication/Technical Communication Lessons)

... takes time, sure, but the payoff (which might not be for five years), is much more rewarding. Of secondary importance are things like revision history, the name of the person who created or last changed ...

15. Why You Should Edit Your Information
(Usability/Usability Tips, Lessons and Articles)

... or remember something. Once cognitive overload occurs, steps can be missed or understood or remembered incorrectly. In the example above, a reader has to take the extra time to understand what the step ...

16. Persuasive Writing Example
(Technical Communication/Technical Communication Lessons)

... sponsors to continue allowing our corporate board members (employees of the sponsoring organizations) to take time off from work to visit campus once a year and provide feedback about our program. For ...

17. PowerPoint Tips
(Technical Communication/Technical Communication Lessons)

... in your presentation. There's nothing worse than giving a presentation and seeing on your own screen, at the same time as the audience, a glaring misspelling. Have someone check it before you give it. ...

18. The Use of Programming Source-Code Comments
(Technical Communication/Technical Communication Lessons)

... when I drop out of academia in a couple of years it will be due to nonsense like this. For the time being, the article can be downloaded as a PDF file because it is about 80 pages or so. Others have found ...

19. When To Use Graphics
(Technical Communication/Technical Communication Lessons)

... sometimes need anchoring to send the message you intend. What I mean can quickly be demonstrated with any work of art you can think of. For example, there is a Jackson Pollack painting called “Galaxy.” ...

20. Resume Guide Part 9
(Resume Writing/Resume Writing Lessons)

... one time where my official title was “information developer.” This is the only company in the world where this title exists. In most other organizations that same role is called “technical writer.” So ...

21. Resume Guide Part 7
(Resume Writing/Resume Writing Lessons)

What If There’s No Job Ad? This is a truly valid question, and one that many of my students ask me. Sometimes we’ll come across an employment opportunity without the benefit of a complete description of ...

22. Resume Guide Part 6
(Resume Writing/Resume Writing Lessons)

... they prove, and then write these both down. What are some other attributes? One particularly important set of personal attributes are interpersonal skills. Imagine the waste of time and money if you were ...

23. Resume Guide Part 3
(Resume Writing/Resume Writing Lessons)

... more buried in the text than it can be in a resume. A person reading a cover letter is willing to take more time to find the important information, just like you might when you read a magazine or newspaper ...

24. Minimum Functionality for Increased Usability
(Usability/Usability Tips, Lessons and Articles)

... of the most successful techno-gadgets produced in a long time. I argue here that one of the ingredients to its success is its limited functionality, which increased its usability. Think about what the ...

25. Resume Guide Part 1
(Resume Writing/Resume Writing Lessons)

... the university, and perhaps after putting in the same or more amount of time in the professional sector, the last thing they want to do is waste their time trying to convince someone they should be given ...

26. Technical Communication and Programming: Using Writing Rules
(Technical Communication/Technical Communication Lessons)

... hobby. And while I cannot provide insight into better programming principles, I can offer guidance about writing those short pieces of text programmers always embed, but sometimes neglect. Helping students ...

27. Usability Testing: Task-based Testing
(Usability/Usability Tips, Lessons and Articles)

Task-based usability tests are perhaps the most important type of usability measurements available. Simply put, they require users to attempt to actually use the item in question. Their failure or success ...

28. Usability Testing: Tapping Task
(Usability/Usability Tips, Lessons and Articles)

... it is theoretically impossible to really multi-task, because we can really only concentrate on one thing at a time. Cognitive load theory is easily proven by people who try to drive while talking on their ...

29. Iterative Usability Testing
(Usability/Usability Tips, Lessons and Articles)

... testing is like sanding a piece of wood to a glass-like finish. The wood starts out rough, but then becomes smoother and smoother each time a new, finer grit of sand paper is used. And, like sanding, ...

30. Usability and Engineering Design
(Usability/Usability Tips, Lessons and Articles)

... should not take the user much time to study the item before understanding how it works. Ease of remembering: Once learned, the process for using the item should be simple enough so that it is at least ...

31. Usability Case Study: Apple Newton
(Usability/Usability Tips, Lessons and Articles)

... Apple in 1993 and was supposed to save the company from the declining sales it had been experiencing at that time (remember that the pc--assisted by Microsoft--was absolutely clobbering Apple). Apple invested ...

32. How to Use Whitespace
(Technical Communication/Technical Communication Lessons)

White space is the term used to denote the space between objects on a page (web pages, printed pages, etc.). Look at figure 1, a paragraph of text in Times New Roman. There is no margin around the text, ...

33. Goals of Technical Communication
(Technical Communication/Technical Communication Lessons)

... of time simply trying to locate what they need, your document has already failed. Design the document so that it's easier to get the information to the reader. The third aspect to remember is that you ...

34. How to Use Font Types: The Sequel
(Technical Communication/Technical Communication Lessons)

... us that Love doesn't surrender to time, it is in fact immune to the affects of time. Not too bad. But when paired with the font type I selected, it doesn't come across as upbeat, but ominous. The second ...

35. How to Use Font Type
(Technical Communication/Technical Communication Lessons)

You wouldn't think that something as seemingly insignificant as the type of font you use (i.e., Times New Roman, Arial, Helvetica, Garamond, etc.) could be so important, but it really is. As one of the ...

36. What Font Size to Use
(Technical Communication/Technical Communication Lessons)

... at the same time allowing us to put an efficient amount of text on a page (81/2 X 11 U.S. letter size). As a rule, start with 12 point and then move up 2 points for every heading level starting with the ...

37. Consistency in Writing
(Technical Communication/Technical Communication Lessons)

... Consider your readers looking at your document. On the first page they are facing an unfamiliar set of clues telling them how to find the information they need. But by the time they get to page 20, they ...

38. The Context of Communication
(Technical Communication/Technical Communication Lessons)

... is on-time, or late, or ahead of schedule. They'll surely understand the terms and language you use to describe the project. However, if the presentation is to an executive, much of this changes. You may ...