Technical Writing for Software Developers: Enhance communication, improve collaboration, and leverage AI tools for software development

Cover
Title Page
Copyright and Credits
Contributors
Table of Contents
Preface
Chapter 1: The Why, Who, and How of Tech Writing
	Why should you care about tech writing?
	What can documentarians accomplish?
		Marketing
		Product
		Sales
		Support
		Developer relations
		Engineering
		Machine readers
		Proofreading for accuracy and safety
		Content silos
		Writer in the middle
	Understanding who you are writing for
		Learning by example
		Don’t forget the end users and the end-end users
	Summary
Chapter 2: Understanding Different Types of Documentation in Software Development
	Templates
	Getting started and onboarding
		A detailed overview of Getting Started
		Learning with an example
		Templates for a Getting Started guide
	Tutorials
		Expanding on the example
		Templates for tutorials
	Reference
		API documentation
		Architecture and design details
		Security and privacy details
	Technical blog posts
	Summary
Chapter 3: Language and the Fundamental Mechanics of Explaining
	Common reasons for not writing confidently
		Not a native speaker
		Intentionally vague
		Marketing and product reasons
		Reducing cognitive load
		Inclusive language
	How to improve your writing
		Consistency
		Involving the user
		Keeping it short
		Removing unnecessary words
		Don’t show off – let the product speak for itself
		Don’t repeat yourself
	Inclusive language: in more detail
		Overly negative language
		Biased language
		Gender
		Out-of-date language
	Summary
Chapter 4: Page Structure and How It Aids Reading
	Humans are not your only readers
	The principles of good layout
	A quick primer on the markup language of the web
	Thinking about pages semantically
		Lists
		Paragraph breaks
		Tables
		Admonitions
		Tabs
	An example of a well-structured page
	Creating documentation menus and navigation
		Following menu patterns
		Adding internal search
		Keeping links working
	Summary
Chapter 5: The Technical Writing Process
	Scoping and requirements gathering
	What to document
	Research and product testing
	Drafting and re-drafting
	Feedback, testing, and maintenance
		Metrics and measuring success
	Summary
Chapter 6: Selecting the Right Tools for Efficient Documentation Creation
	Topic-based documentation
	Docs as code
	Documentation in the browser
	Choosing toolchains and tools
	Why docs as code?
		Selecting and using a markup language
		Adding metadata to markup with YAML
		Making Markdown dynamic with MDX
	The key tools in docs as code
		Text editor
		Collaboration
		Rendering
	Helping less technical writers with headless CMS
	Analyzing documentation performance
		Analytics tools
		Sentiment
	Summary
Chapter 7: Handling Other Content Types for Comprehensive Documentation
	We are more than technical writers
	Code examples
		Deciding on a consistent example
		Creating and organizing code examples
		Testing code examples
		Keeping an eye on prerequisites
	Screenshots, images, and charts
		Screenshots
		Adding other images
		Making images accessible
	Animated GIFs and videos
		What to make a video of
		What to show
		How to record
		Audio
		What to show
		Recording
	Interactive experiences
	More than final words
Chapter 8: Collaborative Workflows with Automated Documentation Processes
	Striking the right balance
	What is a style guide?
		Developer-friendly style guides
		Choosing a type of tool to use
	Automating image generation
		Using test suites
		Automating other image types
	Automating video
		Converting terminal commands to video
		Other video automation options
	Automating code testing
	Other automation options
		Converting file formats
		Accessibility
	Summary
Chapter 9: Opportunities to Enhance Documentation with AI Tools
	A brief history of AI
	Understanding AI and ML
	Recent advances in AI
		Text and code completion and improvement
		Generating documentation
		AI for audio and video
		Generating media
	New ways of interacting
	The principles of training and creating your own AI
	Writing for robots
	Summary
Index
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