Sydney: Interviewing techniques | Making docs more visual | WTD Portland Wrap-up

Costs: Zilch. Nada. Zero.

Software instructions by IKEA? Making your docs more visual

Presenter: Ben Crothers

Summary

As writers and designers of software documentation, we ask for a lot of patience from our readers. In the age of ever-decreasing attention spans, it gets harder and harder to keep to that short time limit that readers give us, as we connect what they’re after to the right answer.

As a design strategist and a design educator, Ben is passionate about using visuals as much as possible to explore problems, explain concepts, and generate new ideas. In this talk, he’ll show you how it’s possible to go beyond screenshots and videos to make documentation more visual, and more interesting. Oh, and you can expect this talk to have lots of pictures.

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Interviewing techniques, working with engineers

Presenter: Rebecca Merrett

Summary

Most of Rebecca's day is spent discussing new features, concepts and what's on the development roadmap with software engineers, so knowing how to make the best use of her and the engineers' time is crucial to success in her job. But it's easier said than done.

How do you get the information you need out of subject matter experts who are too stuck in their heads, too busy to discuss their work in more detail, and can't see the big picture or how it relates back to value? This is where certain interviewing techniques can help.

In her talk, Rebecca will discuss what has worked for her in getting useful information from people, how she has managed to save herself some time, and translating a conversation into comprehensive words.

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Stories from Write the Docs Portland 2017

Presenter: Shamim Kholosi

Shamim shares his experiences of the Write the Docs Portland 2017 conference.