Description
As documentarians, we face plenty of hurdles to delivering what we are assigned (harried and inaccessible subject matter experts, barely functioning builds, sketchy doc infrastructure, etc.). But there are also the obstacles that keep us from writing the docs we want, and those are largely ingrained in our companies' processes and our own heads.
We pay lip service to "the user" but then subordinate that to concerns of structure, consistency, and stylistic conventions. The result is often docs that are internally consistent and satisfy the editorial, translation, and production teams for their economy and re-usability but are so dry and product-centered that they fail to connect with the most important audience - actual human beings.
In this presentation, I'll talk about ways to overcome burdensome organizational processes and our own timidity to create room for the inspiration and creativity needed to bring the docs' subject alive.