What She Does & How She Does It
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 and your stakeholders. It’s also important to know the state of your current communication efforts and who is involved in a project or product.
I spend time planning a project and revisiting that plan often, keeping you informed of progess, questions, and any additional information or resources I need.
I routinely interview, research, and compile 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 managing, writing, and editing, I also
- Perform usability assessments of software interfaces and websites
- Perform software testing (verification and validation)
- Perform compliance and quality assurance
- Write and edit for an ESL audience and for translation
- Specialize in working with writers whose primary language is not English
- Create indexes
- Design or improve documentation templates
- Produce and edit graphics
- Format and lay out text and graphics
- Track changes, provide feedback, and maintain version control
- Implement established industry, publisher, corporate, and departmental styles and standards. Style guides most often used include Chicago, CSE, APA, AMA, AP, MLA, and Microsoft [more…]. (I can also help you create your own style guide if you need one.)
Tools I have used include
- Microsoft Word and the entire Office suite
- Adobe applications, including FrameMaker, InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, and Acrobat
- TFS and Visual Studio
- project management and version control tools, including SharePoint
- requirements management tools
- Help-authoring tools
- Web-authoring tools
- various markup languages, including HTML, XML, and SGML
- screen capture software