Category Archives: technology

Six Years of Write Techie

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Believe it or not, May 22, 2011 was the day I launched writetechie.com! It has been a wonderful journey developing this website on WordPress. My first post, Post-STC 2011 Summit, reflected on the Society for Technical Communication 2011 Annual Summit held in Sacramento, California.

I celebrated my first year anniversary with a followup post with some analytics. As customary, here’s the rundown of stats from May 2016 to April 2017.

Analytics

  • Number of Sessions: 5,592
  • Unique User: 5,346
  • Page Views: 6,216

Most Visited by Country

  • United States
  • India
  • United Kingdom
  • Canada
  • Australia

Most Visited by State

  • California
  • Texas
  • New York
  • Florida
  • Georgia

Top Most Visited Pages

Technology Changes Throughout the Years

Some of the most major changes have been under the hood with my website. For most, I moved to my third web hosting company since launching my site in 2011. Lessons learned from my first website meltdown, a site revamp and theme template refresh, and moving towards using HTTPS.

My first attempt through HTTPS was ad-hoc and not exactly a correct implementation of HTTPS. It was through CloudFlare and was a total mess with my non-HTTPS web hosting provider. In order to make the move to an HTTPS environment, I had to pony up more money to my (now former) hosting provider to allow certificates and buy my own certificate OR move to a web hosting provider that has HTTPS capability as a standard feature.

I understand that my website is my playground to test new things, make revisions, and improve my skills with web content and WordPress skills. I was a complete novice using WordPress before launching writetechie.com. What I knew about WordPress was through the (now defunct) STC New Mexico Kachina Chapter.

Slowly I’m putting more effort into my website and I’m ready to share more about my experience I’ve had with content strategy and web content over the last couple of years. I felt there was an embargo on what I could share about my experience and I think it’s time for me to share what I’ve learned over these few years. In addition, I have a better perspective about some of the things I’ve been doing. Lastly, I think I’ve broken my “writer’s block” on writing articles for my blog because of my experience writing for my master of science courses.

Look Forward for More

In the next few months, I’ll be back to writing some rather refreshing articles about the field. I’m back with some exciting stuff I want to share. I also want to play with my new screencasting tool and make some fun documentation videos.

MSTPC - Communication Strategies for Emerging Media

Musings on Communication Strategies for Emerging Media

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Last fall, I participated in the University of Wisconsin-Stout (UW-Stout) Master of Science in Technical and Professional Communication (MSTPC) program class on communication strategies for emerging media.

During the class, our assignment was to write blog articles about the assigned readings and discuss with the class about our take on this field. Below are my blog posts. Feel free to read them as I make my journey to become a master in the field of technical communication.

Each of these posts I wrote has a compelling story as well as a fresh perspective on the field. My approach in this class was to write in a casual and professional mode. My intent was to write to a wide audience who would enjoy reading about technical communication, communication strategies, and emerging media. Let me know in the comments what you think and maybe point to any topic I should cover next on my own blog!

I’ll be back regularly posting about my experience with usability testing, user experience studies, and content strategy soon. There has been a lot I have been working on in the last few years that I want to share with you.

Template Refresh for 2015 and Beyond

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Over the weekend I changed the theme of my website once again. This theme is the third iteration since 2011. I decided to go to with a theme created by Automattic, the people who create WordPress.

WriteTechie - Light Theme Color

Write Techie – September 2011

Why was it time to change? I wanted to start with a clean slate. As a web developer, I experimented with minor improvements to an old theme for better functionality. At some point those changes got in the way and caused more harm than good.

I decided that trashing an old design I’ve customized for years and start something new was a better solution. In this case, it’s not as new as you might think. I chose a familiar WordPress theme that I’ve used on another website for a few years.

Write Techie - September 2015

Write Techie – September 2015

I also want to emphasize the current trends of web design and writing in this version of my template refresh.

Fonts

Despite higher screen resolutions on mobile devices, sans-serif fonts are still better to read than serifs. They’re still great to use, but serifs are better for printed material. I chose to cut the serif fonts in favor of sans-serif for the reason that it is easier to read on screens.

Responsive Design

There is nothing new here except to make sure that any website is responsive to an unlimited number of screen sizes and resolutions. There is no excuse for websites to show up incorrectly on an iPhone, a 32-inch monitor, or a display on Times Square.

Simplicity

Web writing is a completely different world than other types of writing. Keeping it simple will give users the right information the first time and show them how to do the tasks they came for.

Content

As with any template refresh, so comes the content. The more concise, the better.