Write the Docs Podcast

In this episode, we explore where technical writers belong in an organization. Is tech comm best placed within engineering, marketing, product management, or another group? We also talk about strategies for doc navigation, in particular, the merits of inline links and/or sidebar navigation, using a post from Every Page Is Page One as a starting point. Are hierarchical sidebar menus still useful, or are they a relic of the past? Finally, we provide details about the upcoming Write the Docs conference in Portland, and Chris mentions his new book on responsive design.

In this episode, we talk about continuous integration strategies for docs (for style, screenshots, and REST calls). We also dive into discussions around docs as code, including how to encourage developer collaboration, how to stay informed about the code updates that developers make, and more.

In this episode, we discuss top technical writing trends for 2017. Chris discusses how more technical writers are interacting with support groups, and even being embedded within support departments. Jared discusses how docs are being planned for earlier in development cycles, as more product managers are seeing the value of docs. Tom talks about how more technical writers are treating documentation as code, and the challenges inherent in developer tools and workflows.

In episode 2 of the Write the Docs podcast, we explore how to help users find what they're looking for in your documentation. We talk about various tools for findability: search, tags, faceted filters, sidebar navigation, inline links, related links, terms/glossaries, and breadcrumbs.

In this first episode, we introduce the co-hosts, the podcast theme, and chat about a few articles. The four co-hosts include Jared Morgan, Carlee Potter, Chris Ward, and Tom Johnson. We're located in Sydney, Brisbane, Berlin, and California. In this episode, we chat about content strategy, style guides, abbreviations and acronyms, developer-written UI copy, and more.