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Journals by EmailI had a funny idea about the writing process. I was talking to a colleague about the steps he takes to create a video tutorial, and he said he uses his online help content to produce the voiceover script. I haven’t done it that way myself because I think I have this concept that my help text isn’t conversational enough to work as voiceover.
That made me wonder, though, if I could reverse this order to write help (or other types of documentation). How good would my help text be if I inserted a step in the process where I recorded myself just talking about the feature or task that I was going to write about? I could talk as if I were explaining it to a friend or coworker. Then I could use that conversation to write up the content.
This wouldn’t be necessary for the basic procedural steps; I’m not sure how much more conversational you can get than “Click Save.” But any place that the text got more involved, such as additional explanatory information, notes, or concepts, may be a good place for this.
I haven’t given this a try yet—I anticipate that it may prove to take more time than it’s worth. Especially if I tried it for all kinds of deliverables, not just help. But I still wonder about its merit. Maybe once there’s an application available that can transcribe my thoughts, this idea could take off. Until then, I’ll probably have to settle for old-fashioned writing and revising.
Related entries (auto-generated):
The Auditory Learning Style in Tech Writing
Visualization Can Improve Writing
Whether or Not to Read Aloud in Reviewing My Content
The Effect of the Organization’s Culture on Conversational Technical Writing
2 Comments to 'A Possible New Step in the Writing Process'
September 3, 2009
Interesting.
I’ve challenged my team to write up a couple of short (1-2 page) overviews of distinct areas of the product, with a conversational slant. The aim is to get across some of that useful information that is a bit grey, and not the stuff we’d normally have in the formal product documentation.
This might be a good way for them to focus their planning though.
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September 3, 2009
I think we should write all user manuals, tutorials, help, or step-by-step procedures as close to a conversational style as possible. I try to write as if I were standing behind someone and personally walking them through the process. I also try to put in plenty of screens or fragments of screen shots so they can compare what they get after each step to confirm that they are in the right place.
For IT or technical types, I draft the docs the same way, but then extract each installation or configuration procedure to a checklist with a block for installer and system/network/ terminal/client identification, and date and initial verification fields for each section, so that the checklist becomes a verification record that the installation was completed, when, and by whom. And it can easily be returned to for completion if the installer was interrupted during the process.
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