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Category Archives: Articles
I Wonder That You Will Still Be Writing; Nobody Reads You
Agile got (at least) one thing right: stop writing documents no one’s ever going to read. If you want to honestly assess what will or won’t be read – and therefore what should or shouldn’t be written – you should … Continue reading
Don’t Let HR Block Your Next Technical Writer
First let me clarify – I’ve nothing against HR and their involvement in the hiring process. What I object to very specifically are two habits: letting HR choose who gets interviewed, and letting HR do the first interview and veto … Continue reading
The Doomed Knowledge Transfer: Last Minute, Improvised Show and Tell
Leaving your job and training your replacement? There are four simple rules to effective knowledge transfer: create independence, work together, plan and give yourself the time to do these things. First and foremost: assume that you will not be available … Continue reading
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Lessons I Learned as a Tester, 7: Stop. Think.
In a lot of offices, if you’re not typing or clicking – you’re not working. It’s an odd view for any member of an industry that prides itself on thought and creativity. To analyse a problem, understand it and come … Continue reading
UX Review: Emergency Measures
If you’re working on a product and have no particular understanding of UX, you can still do a basic UX review to stop the most obvious disasters. This will not be as good as getting a UX expert or experienced … Continue reading
Lessons I Learned as a Tester, 6: The Secret Usefulness of Bad QAs
We’ve all worked with testers who were bad at their job; it was frustrating and felt like a giant waste of time and effort. But hold on to those bad testers: they’re more useful than you think.
Lessons I Learned as a Tester, 5: It’s not a Feature, it’s a Bug: Fixing Bugs Your Users Enjoy
Some bugs, even quite severe ones, can seem to your users like very nice features. Bugs that are likely to reach this status are those that make work smoother at the expense of security (for example, not enforcing part of … Continue reading
Make Yourself a Better Writer: Treat Every Document Like a Writing Sample
The only way to improve, the internet keeps telling us, is to push yourself past your comfort zone so that you’re always learning new things. Writing day in and day out, however, can mean you start to churn out documents on … Continue reading
Posted in Articles, Technical Writing
Tagged Quick writing tips, Writing for writers
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Glossing Over the UX: Why Do so Many UX Bugs Get Past the QA?
Some bugs are a work of art. Consider a login page I encountered a few weeks ago. Two fields, one Submit button – so far so obvious. But above the button was the text “Do not press Enter to log … Continue reading
Stump Documents: on Failures to Write Transferable Information
There is a general problem in software, more pronounced in minimalist Agile efforts, of documents that look good at the time of writing, but do a poor job of transferring information. I call these “stump” documents because readers are stumped … Continue reading
Posted in Articles, Technical Writing
Tagged Writing for non-writers, Writing for writers
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