Technical Writing Rhizome Collection
(Note: this page is mostly archival. See the tag and the sub-section on this wiki for more relevant and up to date information.)
By day, and sometimes by night, I am a technical writer. I write documentation that explains how to use technology, and use that technology more productively. I explore how to accomplish a wide variety of tasks with technology, and I work to make sure practices and procedures are recorded so that institutional knowledge and policy do not need to be continuously recreated. I've largely avoided writing about this, as science fiction is much more fun to write about, not to mention more interesting for everyone else.
Nevertheless, I think technical writing is incredibly important. Documentation, in many different forms, makes it possible to do important things with technology, and makes it possible for users to improve their technological experience, and thus in a very real sense themselves.
The posts in this series address problems in the practice of technical writing, problems with how users interact with technical writing, and how documentation can be improved and can improve technology.