Now that the STC Summit is over, the session that sticks out in my mind the most is Ginny Redish’s one on “writing as an asynchronous conversation.” I don’t think I had heard of Ginny before the conference, even though apparently she’s about as famous as you can get in the technical communication field. But once the session was over, I could see why she had reached that level.

In one hour, Ginny gave the audience a clear understanding of the topic and how it applies to everyday work. That’s one of the things I really wanted out of the conference: some specific ways of looking at my writing and seeing how it can improve, or specific devices for better instructional content.

Based on her book titled Letting Go of the Words, Ginny’s session discussed how documentation should address readers’ unasked questions. Yes, this could get into the territory of crystal-ball-gazing and palm-reading—not truly knowing what the user is thinking but acting like we know.

However, the idea here is to anticipate users’ questions by following a progression of thought. Here’s an example (not from the book or the presentation):

Quick-Start Guide: Before you can sign in to the system, you need a username and password. Contact the Security Manager for a temporary username and password.

User: Who is the Security Manager?

Guide: To find out who the Security Manager is, send an email to directory@jellycorp.com with “Security Manager Information” in the subject line.

When you have a username and password, enter them on the system sign-in screen, and click the Sign In button.

User: I got an error and couldn’t sign in.

Guide: Go to page 10 for a list of sign-in errors and how to resolve them.

Now that’s context-sensitive help. Of course, the user isn’t actually there, but by asking natural questions of ourselves as we write, we can anticipate many of the user’s half of the dialogue. We stand a better chance of giving the information the user needs when he needs it.

This is no substitute for user research, but it’s a practical technique that could save your users some headaches.

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