Why do product manuals sound formal and stiff-upper-lipped? Why don’t users read manuals? These questions have haunted the hallowed precincts of Technical Writing for quite some time now. From what I have seen in Indian writers, I am forced to conclude that English Composition, as we were taught in school, is the culprit. Our merit was based on how verbose we were. They judged our style based on how ‘formal’ we were.

You can argue all day that you know a customer that reads your manuals but my point is that most don't. It is a blessing in disguise for most of us: we get away with some really sloppy writing. But if you honestly want to help your customers but don't want to incur support costs, here goes:

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Hi all,
I am glad to announce that we will be rolling STC India's Special Interest Group (SIG) on User Experience (UX) shortly. This also happens to be the first ever SIG from STC India. I am looking for volunteers to help me kick-start this SIG. If you profess a keen interest in usability, human factors, and design, and would like to volunteer, write to me.

The Plan

*Launch the SIG along with its own web site.
* Work closely with the STC SIG and other chapter SIGs like the Washington DC Usability SIG
*Conduct research projects on documentation usability and publish findings.

Ah! Found the topic interesting? Great. Come to the STC Unconference then. I will be talking about it.

Time: 11:15 - 12:15

Venue:
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Sasken Communication Technologies Ltd
139/25,Amar Jyothi Layout,Ring Road,
Domlur Post Office,
Bangalore, 560071, India
Tel: + 91 80 3989 1122

The STC has its formal conference annually but nothing of that sort happens in TWIN. That's understandable. TWIN is an informal group. But why should that stop us from organizing meet-ups? I know folks in Mumbai meet up. I am sure people in other cities and towns do too. But here's the big momma: can we organize a national TWIN meet? It is just a thought. Let me know what you guys think. Also, if twinners are meeting up in their respective towns, I request them to blog about their meets here on the portal. Maybe we should start a flickr group called TWIN?

See http://www.flickr.com/groups/twinners/
Now you can add the power of pictures to your blog posts, forum posts and stories! Post the pic in flickr and link it here!

Sandeep's announcement on the TWIN list:
Hello,
On behalf of the TWIN portal and judges, I'm glad to announce the winners of the recently-concluded TWIN Technical Writing Blogging Contest. Before getting into the specifics of the three winners, I'd like to write some boring preface...err...thank all the participants who submitted their blog posts for the contest. It was both informative and fun to read posts on some really diverse topics. And don't believe a word when Suman announced that we're going to publicly ridicule the really sad posts. That I AM announcing the winners instead of him is sufficient proof of the kind of evil we're convinced he is capable of.

Now you don't have to choose the categories we define. Just go ahead and 'free tag'. I believe in the collective wisdom so I don't think we'll have any aberrations here.
If you are confused, don't panic. When you make your next post, you will understand. Capiche?
Why are we doing this? Democracy and liberty baby.

Excerpt from a job posting on the TWIN list:

Mandatory Technical Skills:
** Experience with technical publishing software (preferably FrameMaker / RoboHelp) to produce content for online and print delivery. Knowledge of FrameScript is also useful.

** Experience and/or interest in developing technical illustrations using a visual design application such as Visio.

** Experience with XML structured authoring, and XSLT style sheet or CSS development.