Tag Archives: Technical Writing

User Story – Writing Guidelines and Checklists

In this week’s technical writing tutorial, we look at how to write a user story. You can use these guidelines and checklists to refine your user stories, expand the material to help your readers understand the scenario, allow developers to code the requirement, and testers to ensure it meets the acceptance criteria. Let’s get started.

Technical Documents: 3 Ways to Improve Quality

Who do you write for? This is a problem for many technical writers, especially if you don’t get to meet or interact with your readers. Essentially, you’re writing in the dark. But, that doesn’t mean you can’t improve the usefulness of the documents. Far from it. Technical Documents: How to be more accurate For example, […]

Are Daily Rates for Technical Writers Starting To Improve?

In December, I looked at the daily rates for technical writers and others in the tech comms industry. At the time daily rates for technical writers are down to $30 per hour in some places in the Bay Area. However, maybe things are starting to turn around. In Ireland (Euro HQ for most US IT companies) Google has announced 150 new jobs, many in technical roles. So, is the tide starting to turn?

How Much Time Do Technical Writers Spend Writing?

How much time do you spend writing every week? Remember, you have 37.5 hours (I know!) for technical writing every week, but how much is actually spent writing? When I say writing I actually mean developing content, so this includes illustrations, diagrams, publishing etc – whatever goes into the final deliverable.

Are technical documents a waste of time?

“Don’t worry” she said. “No one reads this stuff anyway. Just get it done.” Sounds familiar?