Technical Writing
What questions do your constituents have again and again? I help organizations translate complexities for specific use cases. I’ve written user guides, educational modules, documentation, and in-app copy. I’ve also led UX revamp projects. As a market researcher, I consider audiences’ most pressing questions. My ability to learn technical content quickly prompts me to translate your team’s expertise with an ear for what non-experts will understand.
User Guides
I’ve written and edited technical user guides for Wiki Education, summarizing thousands of complex Wikidata and Wikipedia policies and guidelines into newcomer-friendly text successfully used by 16,000+ students and hundreds of data scientists annually. This was a quarterly process through which I would:
gather curricula tips from our Wikipedia expert staff
consult with our target audience to understand objectives and questions
write and edit copy that included only the most relevant instructions and context
adapt our InDesign template to display content
lead multiple stages of content and design review internally and externally
lead printing and publishing
Read a guide I developed about adding science communication content to Wikipedia
In 2015, I produced a user manual for StoryCenter’s Listening Stations, an audio and video recording kit libraries can set up for constituents to capture oral history. The manual introduces the kit (equipment list, specifications, assembly instructions); how to set up the station (choosing a recording environment, layout of equipment, testing equipment, adjusting wifi and admin settings); the Listening Station app (app overview, sample introductory hand-outs for libraries to give constituents, how to use the app, storing files); and maintenance of the equipment (deleting videos at storage capacity, updating apps, general care).
Online Training Module Content
While working with Wikipedia, I wrote and edited documentation for the first ever training program teaching data scientists to utilize Wikidata, the open linked data repository behind Wikipedia. I collaborated with both onsite and remote programs staff to translate technical curriculum into clear and concise training modules for beginner and intermediate audiences. I documented processes, managed communication channels, and juggled multiple timelines and priorities. Part of my work developing training content also included using YAML and Markdown in Github, testing in a local Ruby on Rails development environment, and synching with our upstream repository. View trainings here or my Github profile
UX Re-configuration
I led a project to revamp Wiki Education’s Dashboard assignment timeline, the primary tool used by the university instructors and students Wiki Education supports. Instructors use the Dashboard to customize and manage an online Wikipedia assignment using a template assignment timeline and students use the Dashboard to stay informed and take Wikipedia trainings (see above work sample). Both groups had provided ample feedback to our technology team that the timeline view was overwhelming, confusing, and wordy. In this revamp project, I considered this feedback, helped identify solvable problems, and proposed changes. I consulted our technology director to make sure I understood the perimeters around making these changes and how to implement them myself. I then led multiple stages of review with our program managers. And I tested edits in a local development environment and submitted pull requests to our upstream repository through Github. My improvement activities included:
Transferring unessential text on the timeline into relevant training modules, deleting redundancy (see the example image to the left for an example of one weekly module or see my Github commits for this project)
Re-writing module content to be more clear/concise and to use more plain-language
Re-organizing modules along the template assignment weeks and adding additional “exercise” modules—a shorter, more interactive training that breaks up the longer trainings and makes assignment expectations more clear to students (read the release notes I wrote for our Program Manager, Helaine, to learn more about these new modules I created)
Leading stages of review to ensure content integrity and accuracy