ASTC Conference 2024 - Tools, Trends, Technologies

Gareth will explore the bewildering range of tools and technologies available to the technical communicator. He will provide ideas to help navigate this landscape and help boost our performance.

1. delivering fearless solutions
for unconventional problems
shakewell.agency

2. INTRODUCTION
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shakewell.agency

3. Technology, content, and workdow consultant - 15 years
Solution architect and software engineer - 25 years
Specialisation in XML content management and publishing solutions
Gareth Oakes
Chief Technology OQcer
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4. We boldly brand, design, build & market disruptive digital solutions for
organisations unafraid of pushing boundaries.
COMPANY PROFILE
ESTABLISHED
2018
EMPLOYEES
35+
GLOBAL LOCATIONS
3
HIGH GROWTH

CUSTOMER
SATISFACTION
.★★★★★
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5. Agenda
Bewildering array of tools and technologies exist in the market
What tools will work best for me?
What technologies will boost my productivity?
What about AI?

6. TECHNOLOGIES.
TOOLS, TRENDS,
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shakewell.agency

7. Tech Comms Fundamentals
Technical communications materials:
●Helpdesk and knowledge base
●Product reference materials, APIs, training, and user guides
●Troubleshooting and technical support
●Service and maintenance procedures
●Parts identiccation and ordering
Product/process information
(vs information products)
Commercial versus military applications

8. Common Challenges
Content reuse and conditional content to suit: product
structure/options/variants, user roles, operating conditions, etc.
Omni-channel publishing from single source
Localisation, language translations, and accessibility
Multiple contributors, consistency, quality, frequent updates
Visualisations, illustrations, videos, animations, and interactives

9. Tool and Technology Selection
Each environment is diPerent, start by assessing your situation:
Collaboration
●population of contributors
●cross-functional domains
●review and approval processes
Specicc business challenges
●product or information complexity,
degree of reuse
●delivery channels, markets, and languages
●accessibility, regulatory, and other
compliance considerations
Maturity level
current and desired
Scale
what volume of content, what turn times,
any seasonal peaks

10. Example n1
Scenario:
●Single tech writer for a software company with one main product
●Customers are primarily software developers who need API details
and a knowledge base
Tech comms assessment:
●Maturity: low organisational maturity, no urgent need to ramp up
●Scale: manageable volume of content, timelines are predictable
based on the product release cycle, no seasonal peaks, no
anticipated merger/acquisition etc.
●Collaboration: single author works with product manager and lead
engineer, lightweight technical review and approval process
●No specicc challenges related to reuse, languages, compliance,
delivery formats, etc.
Solution:
●Free or low-cost docs-as-code platform (e.g., Read The Docs,
Redocly, Swagger)

11. Example n2
Scenario:
●Tech writing team for global medical device business,
using MS Word templates
●Customers are health professionals who install,
operate, and maintain the equipment
Tech comms assessment:
●Maturity: good but needs to ramp up to support business growth
●Scale: large content set, timelines are tight, throughput demands
are growing
●Collaboration: multiple authors and content specialists working
with product management, safety, QA, and engineering teams;
rigorous market-specicc review and approval processes
●High product complexity, content reuse is a must, including
variable content, multiple languages and branches per regulatory
jurisdiction, signiccant compliance overheads
Solution:
●Enterprise CCMS with DITA content and integrated translation
features

12. SOLUTION PATTERNS
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13. Pa?ern n1
●Fast and cheap to set up
●Scalable with content volumes but limited templating
●Few options for content reuse
●Good collaboration for technical contributors, diQcult for non-technical contributors
●Basic workdow and review/approval tools
●Limited features for multi-channel delivery
Docs-as-code, help systems, API documentation tools:

14. Pa?ern n2
●Fast and cheap to set up
●DiQcult to scale, poor validation controls and templating
●Few options for content reuse
●Limited versioning and collaboration features
●Poor workdow and review/approval tools
●Expensive and slow for multi-channel delivery
Word processing documents:

15. Pa?ern n3
●Convenient, cloud-based services on a commercial basis
●Scalable with rich features for content reuse, branching, and language translations
●Strong versioning and collaboration features, but requires a level of user training and
support
●Workdow controls and review/approval tools
●Good multi-channel delivery features
Structured content systems (XML/HTML):

16. Pa?ern n4
●Enterprise-grade solutions: Adobe AEM Guides, Contiem RSuite, Madcap IXIA CCMS,
RWS Tridion Docs
●All the features of structured content with the power of DITA
●Implementation and operating costs are a signiccant factor, but these products
support extreme scale
●Many oPer special features, for example RWS is a translation company that oPers
deeply integrated translation support
DITA CCMS (component content management system):

17. CURRENT TRENDS
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shakewell.agency

18. GenAI*
Cloud solutions with web
interfaces
Be?er user interfaces,
self-service features
Integrations
Security
Digital twins
Analytics and business
intelligence
General Trends
Topic-based authoring and
single sourcing
Docs-as-code
Alignment of information
structure with product
structure
Faster, more granular updates
Language tools (Grammarly,
Congree, Acrolinx, etc.)
●Plain English
●Accessibility
Content Trends
Headless CMS
Content-as-a-service API
Rich digital features
Graph database and
semantic data
Smart search
Delivery Trends

19. AI x TECH COMMS
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20. How It Works
End user uses a chatbot interface to enter a query
Query data ? Model ? Iterative recall ? Results
Using an AI
AI software engineer creates an AI model
Data set ? Training ? Pa?erns ? Probabilities ? Model
Creating an AI

21. Best Use Cases
●Generation of draft content
●Language editing
●Summarisation
●Identiccation of similar content
●Semantic tagging and keyword
recommendations
●Smart search (e.g., for research)
●Sentiment analysis (e.g., for user
feedback)
●Content import and structuring
●Language translations
●Adding accessibility features to
content
●Literature reviews
●Data visualisations
●Generation of API documentation
Potential Usages

22. Limitations
●Information currency (modern RAG
techniques do help though)
●Domain expertise
●Hallucinations and ethics
●Complex reasoning
●Processing of non-textual content
(video, images, audio)
●GenAI looks set to become a key
contributor to tech comms
●Like any contributor, it works best
when we collaborate
●We make accessibility provisions and
concessions for human collaborators,
how to best make our content
accessible to AI?
●Ideas:
○Consistent vocabulary, grammar, and
language style
○Delivery of structured content
(beyond HTML/PDF)
Accessibility

23. Thank you for your consideration.
Gareth Oakes, Chief Technology Officer
[email protected] | [phone]
shakewell.agency