How Target User Analysis Helps You Derive the Right Information Structure in User Manuals?
When you create training material or an e-learning course, you do a target audience analysis. You basically think from a learner’s perspective while  designing a training.  You do this so that the learning process is effective. Now when it comes to creating help manuals or user manuals for applications, do you apply the same principle?  I have heard people say that when you do Technical Writing, you do not have to understand

Game of the Month: Time Fcuk
This month’s game was suggested by Jacob Everist.  The game Time Fcuk as Jacob puts it is  really good mind-twisting game. It is perplexing and a lot of fun. This is what Jacob has to say about the game: I played it through and I’m not su

The Writers Gateway Now Offers Services
I am glad to announce that I am an independent professional now. This is something I always wanted to do and it has finally happened now. I launched my site: http://thewritersgateway.com/ that gives an overview of the kind of services I will offer. Of course, there are some pages to be updated. The site will look complete in the coming days. I just wanted to share this piece of ne

How Reverse Engineering Helps You Gain Instructional Design Skills Faster
by ruparajgo | Create your own Cartoon at www.toondoo.com Have you seen a kid take a toy apart and fix the toy together again?  This might seem like a childish act of taking things apart just for fun. But then this childish act of taking things apart can also be a huge learning process.  Here is someone who talks about how he and his son break down a musical piece and  learn to put the parts and phrases together: Just like working through a reverse engineering problem, my son and

Why You Should Have User Centric Tutorials for Software Products
When you create tutorials  for a software product, it is very natural to capture the following: Description about the product features All tasks that one can do with each of the product features Steps to complete each of the tasks Most software product tutorials are product feature centric. Here is an example  of a product feature centric tutorial for Camtasia. The very title of the tutorial indicates it is about adding a callout and setting callout properties in Camtasia.