Tom Johnson
Amazon
How Trends in API Documentation Differ from Other Tech Comm Trends
Biography
Tom Johnson is a senior technical writer for Amazon in Sunnyvale, California. He is best known for his blog, which has one of the largest followings in the tech comm community. Tom has also created an extensive online API documentation course that has helped hundreds of technical writers transition into API documentation.
Talk description
Although informative research has been done to gather general tech comm trends, few surveys limit the responses to only those working in the developer doc space. I recently gathered information about dev doc trends from more than 400 respondents specifically working in dev docs (mostly API docs) through a comprehensive 50-question survey. The results, which you can view here (https://www.questionpro.com/t/PGhS9ZgCFE), show that the tools, workflows, and challenges for those working in API docs differ in notable ways from those working with other types of docs. In this presentation, I'll both present the findings of this research and analyze their significance. The survey's results can help orient, direct, and validate the experiences of technical writers working in the dev doc space.
