Skill #4: Understanding UX Design

Where should user experience (UX) design fit in the technical writer’s toolbox?

Well, think about how your users experience your documentation:
Are they following a workflow path, following a series of pages to complete a series of tasks sequentially?

• Are they following nav links, jumping around to find task-specific information?

Understanding how your users experience your documentation is understanding UX design – which can make or break your docs’ usability.

As our guest and UX designer Autumn Hood describes it: “You can’t have good technical communication without good UX design.”

In this episode, you’ll learn how to think like a UX designer so you can create an effective documentation experience for your users.

The Show Notes:

• Janice Redish’s Understanding Readers
• Susan Weinschenk’s ROI of User Research webinar
• Autumn Hood on Twitter
• Autumn Hood on LinkedIn

Creators and Guests

Host

Jacob Moses

Jacob Moses is the founder and original host of The Not-Boring Tech Writer podcast, which he launched in 2016 to celebrate tech writers and push back against the stereotype that technical writing is boring. He studied technical communication at the University of North Texas, and his first gig out of college was as a tech writer at Rainmaker Digital (formerly Copyblogger Media). Since then, he's carried the skills and values he cultivated as a tech writer into community development and real estate. Today, Jacob is owner of Care Block Development, a real estate development company that acquires, rehabs, and manages historic buildings in Denton, Texas. Pairing historic preservation with thoughtful improvements, Care Block honors the culture of the neighborhoods in which it works to create lovable places for the people it serves. He's also the owner of Sardinha, a premium tinned seafood pop-up pushing premium tins in Denton. If you need a tinfish plug in Denton, Jacob is your guy.

What is The Not-Boring Tech Writer?

Some people hear the phrase "technical writing" and think it must be boring. We're here to show the full complexity and awesomeness of being a tech writer.

This podcast is for anyone who writes technical documentation of any kind, including those who may not feel comfortable calling themselves tech writers. Whether you create product documentation, support documentation, READMEs, or any other technical content—and whether you deal with imposter syndrome, lack formal training, or find yourself somewhere in the gray area between technical communications and general writing—there's a place for you here.

Each month, we publish two episodes: an interview with an amazing guest focusing on useful skills or tools that can help you improve your tech writing skills, and a behind-the-scenes solo episode with host Kate Mueller about what she’s working on, struggling with, or thinking about in her daily tech writing life.

The Not-Boring Tech Writer is generously sponsored by KnowledgeOwl, knowledge base software built for people who care, by people who care.