Eliminate "Variance" from Your Technical Writing
© 2010 Ugur Akinci “Variance” is an important concept in statistics and plays a crucial role in technical documentation as well. Without getting too technical about it: “variance” denotes the way the values of a set of elements vary around a central mean value. Imagine you weighing a hundred marbles. Let’s say the arithmetic-mean weight…
Read MoreMaking the Transition from Technical Communication to Customer Experience Programme Management
(Excerpts) I’ve been asked quite a bit about my transition from Technical Communications to Customer Experience – what’s the relevance of my skills from my previous role to my new one, what are the surprises, challenges … and so on. People who work in tech comms seem to be surprised by the change; people who…
Read MoreTechnical Writing: Split Long Sentences into Shorter Ones
© 2010 Ugur Akinci Technique: Split long sentences into shorter and simpler ones Here is a sure-fire method to split your long sentences into shorter and more easily understandable ones: Split your sentences at conjunctions like “and”, “or”, “while”, “however”, “although” etc. Those are the connection points where one clause is linked to another. By…
Read MoreInformation Design – FIFA 2010 World Soccer Cup MatchCast
FIFA did a great job in designing its MatchCast web site where you can follow ongoing matches in real time. There’s no video or sound but an excellent minute-by-minute play-by-play, with ample stats and information for your enjoyment. The four tabs at the top of the screen do a great job in sharing such “meta…
Read More