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A quick note this week: If you know of any blogs out there that focus on hardware documentation writing I’d love to hear about them. I’m keen to see if there are other topics being covered out there as I’m aware that my scope is defined by my current interests. Right, let’s press on.

Can online help show โ€œread wear?โ€
Anne Gentle ponders on how best to show the online help topics which have the most traffic, and comes up with some interesting ideas:

“You could … show the most searched-for terms when the user searches. Concepts may be more easily connected when you understand what others were searching for.”

To my mind anything that helps people find what they are looking for is a good thing, and these more subtle, dynamic, pathways are a tangible advantage to delivering content online.

Do We Really Need Structured Document Formats? (Is Real Reuse Possible?)
Eric Armstrong investigates the many and varied aspects of structured authoring, and offers a balanced view of the pros and cons from his own point of view:

“I know from personal experience that it is possible to be “seduced by the capacity for reuse”, to the point that you over-engineer your docs like crazy, and take forever to deliver something “perfect” that would have much better received had it been much more imperfect, and much more rapidly produced!”

Can better technical documentation give your business a competitive advantage?

…technical documents – the user guides and help systems used regularly by customers – at the centre of the corporation-customer relationship, and calls such documents “value generators” as they help build trust and confidence.

Striving for Success in DITA Conversion – A Quick Reference
From Noz Urbina, some sage advice that I’m filing away under “Obvious but worth being reminded of”:

A lot of people see ‘project scoping’ as overhead that delays ‘production’, but it’s a classic example of ‘measure twice, cut once’.

A bit short and sweet this week, such is the price for a four day week though.

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Long time blogger, Father of Jack, geek of many things, random photographer and writer of nonsense.

Doing my best to find a balance.

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