Maybe my #Writer brain can't cope but why the heck is it so hard to navigate #Figma omg

Me trying to interpret user journeys through Figma designs: 👇

#tech #technicalwriting

Through my technical writing career, I have discovered that if I ever want to switch careers, I should go into QA.

It’s ridiculous how many bugs I discover while writing manuals that our QA had no idea about!

#TechnicalWriting

I have been meeting with a discouraging series of low salary offers. Not that I am looking for work, just regularly getting hit by recruiters.
Barely 2000€ (net) for senior #TechnicalWriting roles is next to outrageous. And from firms in wealthy nations even.

@fedora

The Fedora Docs team will host virtual writing workshop.

We will kick off with introduction and onboarding.
– What the Docs team is all about. What role will interest you?
– The types of user documentation Fedora Linux publishes
– How you can help improve Fedora Documentation

If you fancy coming along, just let us know your preferred timeslot in the When-is-good scheduler by September 15 2023.

https://fedoramagazine.org/docs-workshop-virtually-writing-together/

https://whenisgood.net/qrnxqwp

#floss #technicalWriting #OpenSource

I’ve been hard at work writing Cork’s built-in Help book. I got the structure and the first couple chapters done already! This is what I do for a living, after all #TechnicalWriting 😂

To all the macOS developers who had to write Help books: do you have any tips? What did you use to write the book? I've been using Typora and then converting the folder to HTML using https://github.com/joakin/markdown-folder-to-html, but I wonder if there's a better way

#macOS #opensource #buildinpublic #macdev #homebrew #CorkApp

I wrote more about haunted manuals. Part 1 defined the terms. Part 2 gave counterexamples. Now, at last, here come examples.

A taxonomy of old haunted manuals
Your manual is haunted. But how, exactly? (Haunted manuals part 3)

https://rinsemiddlebliss.com/posts/2023-08-25-a-taxonomy-of-old-haunted-manuals/

#TechnicalWriting #Hauntology #Derrida #Documentation #HauntedManuals

Have reached the point where I bemoan gdocs for its lack of markdown support, slash commands, and command palette nav every time I open one.

I know I live pretty far down the docs as code / PKM rabbit hole, but I sincerely hope some of these design cues make it to the big time. #TechnicalWriting #Obsidian

This week I continue the haunted manuals series with a bit of a swerve into old circuit diagram appreciation.

Elegant diagrams (not haunted)
Haunted manuals, part 2, being a digression through circuit diagrams

https://rinsemiddlebliss.com/posts/2023-08-18-elegant-diagrams-haunted-manuals-part-2/

#CircuitDiagram #TechnicalWriting #blog

Me: [pushing long established process] Anything for this release?
*crickets*
Me: Anything at all? Nothing's flagged In Jira.
*crickets*
Me: OK. I'm cancelling tomorrow's global meeting.
Folks: [next morning] Wow, Phil. We missed all your emails & DMs. We've actually got a lot to talk about. Can you drop everything & work like mad to produce these release notes & run a meeting like your standing meeting but on a random day/time ASAP?
Me: …
#techWriterLife #technicalWriting

Docs as code: More like docs IN code. Learning about swagger.annotations while advocating for upgrade to support OpenAPI v3. It's been a while since I worked in Java. Weird to get nostalgia vibes on a current project. Also I feel like the teacher learning the subject the night before the class. Damn I love this job. #techWriterLife #technicalWriting #writeTheDocs #docsAsCode

Hands-down, the most useful part of ChatGPT is translating the borderline incomprehensible English from our JIRA issues, written by SMEs who barely speak English, into something that I can actually read.

For this, I use a Raycast AI command with a pretty short prompt.

Works like a charm about 95% of the time.

#raycast #ai #ChatGPT #GPT4 #TechnicalWriting @rekiwi

@djwfyi Yesterday we were Cassandra. Today you can just call us Sisyphus. #techWriterLife #technicalWriting

I am in the middle of a #Documentation gap analysis audit this week, and oof it is a slog. We don’t have tooling around this so I’m doing it manually. Auditing 6 SDK docs sets just takes time.

I start with a page-level audit to identify missing pages, and then a section-level audit to identify missing info on existing pages, and then create Jira tix to fill the gaps.

We should do this annually, but so far we’ve just done it ad hoc for single SDKs. Curious how it goes. #TechnicalWriting

@trike You can just call us Cassandra. #techWriterLife #technicalWriting

@dgarcia360 I was just discussing this recently with some teammates. Our conclusion was to use lists for data with one or maybe two dimensions, and reserve tables for data with three or more dimensions. Our rationale was that tables create heavier styling on the page, and more overhead for screen readers, and should be reserved for data that warrants it. Always interesting to hear different opinions from other folks in the #TechnicalWriting community.

Haunted manuals

You've heard of the curse of knowledge, but could your manual be haunted as well?

How might a manual be haunted? Wait, what is the curse of knowledge? What the heck is hauntology? I answer those questions and give a few preliminary examples of haunted manuals.

https://rinsemiddlebliss.com/posts/2023-08-11-haunted-manuals/

#TechnicalWriting #Hauntology #Derrida #Documentation #blog #blogging

So I'm taking Thursday and Friday off because of how fatigued I feel. I foresee this becoming a regular occurrence until I can find my way to another job because the Autistic burnout is getting stronger.

I wish I could find a mentor, especially for something like technical and/or UX writing. It seems everybody I reach out to is also burnt out.

@actuallyautistic #actuallyautistic #autisticburnout #mentorship #mentor #technicalwriting #UXwriting

@apfelkraut @darktable RTFM reminds me of Erin Grace, a force for good in the docs/user-ed space and her helpful, empathetic, practical reimagining/redefinition of "RTFM": https://www.readthefriendlymanual.com/blog #techWriterLife #technicalWriting #writeTheDocs

Silver lining on a stupid cloud: I posted recently about my bad call when structuring doc sets. The good news: my years of work to maintain consistency across projects is really paying off as I chop & hack & reshuffle & extend (variable names, conditional tags, file organization, etc.) #techWriterLife #technicalWriting #writeTheDocs

The Brave Little Tech Writer #techWriterLife #technicalWriting