Tuesday

Write a Developer Zone Article

In my peer review yesterday with Traci, we decided some of my content would make an excellent tutorial for the NI Developer Zone Web site. This Web site is a dedicated space for helping NI users build measurement and automation systems; the site gives users access to the latest technical information and samples, as well as a community of developers ready to share their own techniques. Developer Zone documents include example programs, technical presentations, and tutorials. Traci and I agreed the content I've written is helpful for customers, but is too specific for the manual, so I create the Web page and publish it.

Fix Documentation Bugs

Though our documentation goes through extensive reviews, there are times when we find issues in our documentation. These issues can include mistakes, omissions, or information that is not explained clearly. We can find issues while reading the documentation, browsing the forums for questions that customers have, testing documentation, and reading product suggestions from customers and other employees at NI. When we find issues, we create bug reports and assign them to writers on the team.

Today I work on fixing documentation bugs that another writer found during beta testing. Part of our beta testing includes testing our online help index entries to ensure that there are no duplicate entries or broken links. Another writer found several broken links to topics that are no longer included in the help when she was testing. . In addition to fixing the index entries, I verify that we no longer include references throughout the help to the obsolete topics.

The second bug report is more involved than the index entry bug report. A customer submitted a product suggestion mentioning that she was unclear about how to use a particular function. The error message she received and the existing function reference help did not help her figure out how to use the function properly. In order to understand this issue, I read the help and find an example program that uses the same function. I can replicate her issue and figure out how to better explain the function. After I make my initial updates, I run my changes by our product support engineer to ensure that what I write addresses the customer's suggestion.

Today I work on clearing my list of bug reports. All of our bug reports are assigned a priority to help us identify which bug reports to work on. One of my high priority bug reports has to do with a feature we included in our software last release. The documentation did not explain the feature clearly enough, so now I need to rewrite the existing content. I begin by talking to our product support engineer to see what comments customers have had. We brainstorm different ways to explain the feature and come up with a plan to revamp the content and add more details.

Attend NI-TC Steering Committee Meeting

Carrie and I are part of the NI-Technical Communications (NI-TC) Steering Committee. NI-TC is an annual two-day conference for all of the Technical Communications department, which includes the technical writing, document production, and localization teams. We all get together and update each other on what's going on within the department and the company that affects all of us. We talk about new technologies, upcoming products, issues affecting the employees, trends in the technical communication industry, individual and group achievements, and so on.

NI-TC features about 20 hour-long presentations, product/technology demonstrations, and hands-on training classes. Arranging and organizing this content requires a steering committee in which any Technical Communications employee can participate. The steering committee is actually comprised of several subcommittees and a chairperson. This year Carrie is on the Program Committee, which schedules all the presentations submitted by other Technical Communications employees. I'm on the Publicity Committee, which coordinates all the emails and announcements that precede the conference.

Being on the steering committee is a great chance to interact with Technical Communications employees whom I'd never see otherwise. It's also an opportunity to show my peers that I can handle increased responsibility. And honestly, it's a good way to break up the day and do something different every once in awhile. I think NI-TC is a valuable way for Technical Communications employees to interact and get informed about issues that affect them, and I'm happy to help arrange that chance.