What She Does & How She Does It
Traci can manage entire projects for you or concentrate on specific pieces or tasks. There is no one way to approach a project, but it’s imperative to have the big picture and the deadlines up front as well as your goals, your concerns, and anything else that’s important to you. It’s also important to know the state of your current communication efforts and who is involved in a project or product.
She spends time planning a project and revisiting that plan often, keeping you informed of progess, questions, and any additional information or resources she needs. She can serve as a team leader or support a team as a valuable member.
She routinely interviews, researches, and compiles information from engineers, scientists, project managers, marketing representatives, service personnel, and other subject matter experts as well as published sources, including your previous and current documentation.
Besides writing and editing, she also:
- Writes and edits for ESL and translation
- Creates indexes
- Designs or improves your document templates
- Performs usability assessments of software interfaces and websites
- Performs software testing (verification and validation)
- Formats and lays out text and graphics
- Tracks changes, provides feedback, and maintains version control
- Implements established industry, corporate, and departmental styles and standards. Style guides most often used include Chicago, CSE, APA, AMA, AP, MLA, and Microsoft [more…]. (She can also help you create your own if you need one.)
Tools she has used include:
- FrameMaker (including structured) and InDesign
- Microsoft Word and entire Office suite
- Adobe Acrobat
- various Help-authoring tools, including ForeHelp, AuthorIt, and RoboHelp
- various Web-authoring tools, including Dreamweaver, ePublisher, and WebWorks
- Photoshop, Illustrator, Visio, and other common graphics packages
- screen capture software
- various electronic markup languages, including XML and HTML