Education, training, internships, networking, and social media all provide avenues for newcomers to the field. In Part I, Is this the job for me? the advice for people seeking to enter the field is remarkably sound. The emphasis on flexibility and a willingness to change with the environment is an essential feature of this book. At the same time, it describes what managers expect today from their writers, even writers with multiple years of experience. The Insider’s Guide provides exactly the perspective that new technical writers need about teamwork, collaboration, responsibility, curiosity, and more. As Krista emphasizes from the very first, writers need to get out of their cubicles and meet the users.
That crucial small insight that makes the difference between a successful instruction and one that is confusing and frustrating only comes from direct experience and lots of communication with real users. Too often, as I’m sure we’ve all experienced, it seems as if whoever has written the user guide has never actually used the product. Not only should the user be the center of the technical writer’s world, but first-rate technical writers must be responsible for understanding the product.
Adobe golive 9 deutsch professional#
Not only has Krista brought the technology up to date, but she has also stressed what professional technical writers have known for forty years and more: the importance of knowing your information users and their needs and knowing them better than anyone else in the organization. I’m pleased that Krista has written a new version of her first guide for technical writers. It’s even more different since I started in this field in 1977.
Starting as a technical writer now is so different from starting in 2001, when Krista Van Laan’s first book was published.
0 kommentar(er)
