T-shirts Archives - andedam.org

Link Roundup: APIs and Fine Manuals

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

This is one of my favorite shirts. I regularly wear it to work–in fact, I’ve been wearing it enough that I may need to replace it soon.

Working with tech writing, I spend quite a bit of my time assisting in the writing and editing of text for user interfaces, as well as helping colleagues with other types of text. I bought this shirt for fun, but I think it has actually served a purpose as well. I am getting more “hey, grammar police, can you help me with this” requests from colleagues who are not writers, and I think the shirt has helped make it clear that I don’t mind this aspect of my job–in fact, I rather enjoy it. People realize they are welcome to ask for my help, and that if not, my help may still be … let’s say volunteered.

Bought and still available at One Horse Shy.