Writing documentation skills for developers course

Ideal for you if you're:

A developer who needs to write instructional text for users, but you've never had any proper training in how to do this well.

An affordable way for developers to master the skills of technical writing

Cherryleaf’s Documentation Writing Skills for Developers online training course teaches developers the key skills of writing end user content and technical writing for software.

You’ll gain confidence you’re approaching each writing project in the right way, and creating content that follows best practice.

With our reviewed assessments option, you’ll get feedback on your work from experts. You’ll discover what you’re doing right, and how you could make it even better.

Who is this course for?

This course is for developers who:

• Need to write instructional help in Help pages, support pages, KB articles, or in UI text.
• Need a solid understanding of the fundamentals of technical writing
• Want to communicate more clearly and effectively
• Want to know how little, or how much, they should write
• Want people to answer their own Support questions

What will I learn?

• How to communicate clearly, even if writing doesn’t come naturally
• How to save time and write in an efficient way
• Identifying the best type of format for your content
• Confidence in the work you produce
• Document Project management
• Research and analysis
• Revising your work
• Writing for specific audiences

Topics covered

Overview

In this course, we’ll take you through the process of creating technical documentation. You’ll learn and practise:

• The entire documentation process. We’ll explain what you need to do, from beginning to end. We cover planning, writing, editing, indexing, and production.
• How to work more efficiently. This framework will help you avoid wasting time.
• How to work more effectively. We’ll show you how to write and design your information in a structured, useful, usable and informed way.
• Writing skills and proper use of English.
• Getting customers to answer their own Support questions.

Course outline

1. The purpose of technical documentation
2. What is technical writing?
3. Overview of the writing process
4. Planning your content - traditional way
5. Planning your content in an Agile environment
6. Researching the product and users
7. Information Design
8. Language style and English grammar
9. Writing for a global audience
10. How to write and present different types of information.
11. Using images and videos
12. Hyperlinking
13. Writing embedded Help and microcopy
14. Reviewing and editing

Ask a Technical Author

If you're not sure about an aspect of the content you are writing, you'll be able to use the course's discussion forums to ask a Technical Author.

Please be aware

The course doesn’t cover the specialist requirements for aerospace, military, railway and automotive documentation, where documentation must be written to a specific XML standard.

It doesn’t cover how to write technical API documentation for developers.

This course shares content from Cherryleaf's Technical Author/Technical Writing Course. If you have already taken that course, you won't need this one.

Duration and delivery format

The course comprises 14 modules in total, which you can complete at your own pace. The course modules are delivered over the Web in small, manageable video presentations. The course handouts and exercises are downloadable as Word or PDF files. With the time needed to complete the exercises, each delegate will need to allocate around one to two days to complete the course. You can pause the videos at any time and return to the course, for a period of 12 months.

Prerequisites

None