April 2021

Kia ora – Hello!

TechComm Wire is back! We won’t mention the C-word, but we hope you all got through the last year ok.

Every couple of months we’ll bring you what’s happening in technical communication and its related fields. We’ll focus on relevant and interesting topics: people, tech, tools, events, current thinking, and more.

In this issue:

  • President Katie Haggath talks Conference Lite, our 5-year plan, and the 2021 Salary Survey.
  • 2021 Plain English Awards are on!
  • Featured Tech Communicator column returns – with David Tran from Airways NZ
  • What’s the evidence? columnist Earnsy Liu finds out if thinking out loud helps in usability testing
  • Let’s tech communicate offers handy hints for PDF editors, web FAQs, writing in a second language, and more.

And remember to check out our upcoming events on our homepage.

From the President

Meet our new President, Katie Haggath, and find out more about our 5-year plan, the TechComm Wire relaunch, Conference Lite, and the Salary Survey.

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Plain English Awards

It’s time again for the Plain English Awards, and we’re hoping to see some great entries from our members this year.

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Featured Technical Communicator

David Tran is an Information Design Manager at Airways – New Zealand’s air navigation service provider, based in Christchurch. He caught up with Megan Bennett recently to chat about his role at Airways and what it involves.

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What's the evidence? A penny for your thoughts

Do you speak to yourself? Mutter under your breath, cuss, and swear even? You do? I wonder if you’d make a good candidate for think-aloud research. I’m thinking of the think-aloud protocol, where usability researchers ask you to speak your thoughts.

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Let's tech communicate

Good news! If you're looking for a free PDF editor or wanting help to write in a second language, you might find some answers here. Perhaps you’re looking for a reason not to write web FAQs – hint: you don’t have to!

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Introducing our tiered Corporate Memberships

We're finally going ahead with the changes to the Corporate Membership structure that we proposed at the 2019 AGM

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