Stephanie Morillo:
Developers encounter technical writing everywhere: product & API docs, manpages, tutorials & more. We know it matters but what is technical writing exactly? And how does it differ from other writing?
In this brief post, I define what technical writing is, provide examples of technical writing in software and beyond, and explore other skills technical writers must develop to create successful and effective documentation.
Stephanie Morillo
In my own observations and conversations with developers and marketers, UX design is often conflated with visual design or user interface design, when in fact both of these are sub-disciplines within the field of UX design and are not representative of the totality of UX. I’ve been involved in conversations where talk of updating a “page’s UX” has meant adding visual design elements to a page. Anecdotally, I’ve seen calls for “UX designers” in open source when the need was for brand assets like a logo. (In this case, you would look for a visual designer.)
In this short post, I’ll cover some basics of UX design for developers who are interested in understanding what UX is and how it differs from other forms of design.
I’m giving away the four ways of generating ideas that I outline in the book. You can return to these sources over and over again when you need a new idea for your next developer blog post.
Stephanie Morillo:
Naming things is hard because languages are hard, and no two people have the same exact understanding of the same word. But we have to ascribe names and labels to things all the time…
This post seeks to help readers understand why labeling is so difficult. There’s a bit of linguistics, library science, and information architecture thrown in for good measure, but the point is this: language isn’t static and the same goes for the websites, databases, and other objects we create and build.
Stephanie knows her stuff when it comes to creating developer-focused content. If you’re in devrel (or want your thoughts/opinions to impact your fellow devs), this is a must-read. Don’t make these mistakes!
Here’s a great episode of Five Things with our friend Aimee Knight. Burke Holland’s questions dive into less talked about CSS topics, which was enjoyable.
Even if you’ve worked on the frontend for a while, there’s definitely a tip in here for you.
Stephanie Morillo drops some wisdom she gained running the Digital Ocean blog for the past year:
Teams need buy in from the engineering org, a primary owner for all things blog related, a regular publishing cadence, ongoing conversations, flexibility, cross-functional communication, and open dialogue with readers to get the most out of their blog efforts.
Getting buy-in can be the hardest part. I have a hard time convincing myself to blog, let alone other people.
