Still wrestling with my next post on error messages. Meanwhile, I’m sharing some excellent links on technical communications I’ve happened upon lately.
- Ten Reasons Developers Hate Your API (and what to do about it). Some great take-aways for anyone involved with APIs and their documentation here. And yes, terrible documentation is reason number 1 on the list.
- To cut resource-draining just-in-case material: Put each topic on trial. I have a couple of other tools in my belt for this already, but more are always handy. Similar to the 5 whys of root cause analysis.
- Survey on technical communications in Europe. Not so much a general survey as an attempt to figure out what the market would be for tekom activities in your country, but being from a country with barely any sort of relevant conference and training activity, I’m all for that.
- If you want them to RTFM …. Thinking this would make a good motivational poster for tech writers. Maybe even a t-shirt?
- Speaking of t-shirts, I want this one:
By Richard Masoner on Flickr