A few months ago, I wrote a post for five tips to create technical screencasts. Afterwards, I was ask by my former colleague Jessie to write a post for TechSmith about creating visuals for instructions.

Some highlights

Always consider your audience:

• Are my readers already experts? Have they done this process before, if not exactly then in similar circumstances?
• Are my readers internal or external? If my readers are within the same company, what language do we share that will help better explain the process?
• What mood will they be coming to my content with? Am I creating this content for someone who is in a rush to get something done, or is this for a more casual learner who is just hoping to further their education on a topic?
• What is most important to my readers? What is least important?
• How do my readers prefer to learn? Do I know if a blog post is more successful than a video? Is there any analytical data to support these claims?
• Are my readers native English speakers? If I use an idiom, will it hinder their ability to learn how to complete the process?

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As the documentation editor for Joyent, my work has been split in three ways: technical blog posts, screencasts, and actual documentation. I find the most fun with the first two—as important as actual documentation is (and it may be the most important), there’s little room for creativity and an editorial voice. Technical screencasts can have a bit of fun flair, but still must be accurate and (most importantly) instructive.

The more videos I’ve created, the more I’ve learned about how to craft watchable content.

1. Be as brief as possible.

Although there are instances where longer videos come in handy, such as in-depth step-by-step tutorials or publishing webinars, many users don’t have the patience to sit through long pauses or over-explanation of a topic.

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A few weeks ago, I was presented an opportunity to work with kids age 9-16 and teach them “how to build a website,” via Opportunity Music Project. I was told there would be internet access, about five hours of teaching time, and thirty kids in the class. While I always knew that teaching was hard, there’s nothing quite like hands-on experience to prove a thesis.

All in all, it was one of the most challenging and rewarding five hours of my professional career.

There were a number of great moments and missteps along the way. I hope to take these as lessons for future opportunities.

Lesson 1: Set realistic goals

Before class started, I had been asked to help all of the kids leave knowing how to build a website, plus talk about internet safety. Going in, I knew there was no way I could ensure that every kid had the skills to build something right away. But, I knew I could give them a basic understanding of what HTML looked like and the tools to continue to learn when class was over.

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Every two years I redesign my website. It’s an opportunity to be up on modern web design trends, find gaps in content, and re-position the way I think about my skill set. It’s also a way to make sure I still know what my theme looks like inside and out, so that if I do encounter any problems, I know how to fix them.

For this redesign, I decided I wanted to accomplish the following:

• Create a way to sort through projects by skill (web development, writing and strategy, product management, video, etc);
• Create a case study style for projects to better highlight the purposes as well as additional deliverables;
• Remove the resume as featured content, leaving that to LinkedIn;
• Make it easier to contact me;
• Simplify the design.

This site is one of the most important selling points for why you’d want to work with me. I want to make it easy to navigate, while being completely and utterly me.

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On November 9^th, 2016, I spent most of the day in anguish. Like many of my friends (and much of the United States), I wasn’t just disappointed. I was devastated. I was afraid for my friends of various backgrounds, afraid for my LGBTQ friends, and afraid for myself. I knew that it was probably that reproductive rights would be rolled back in the new administration. I had been receiving free birth control thanks to the Affordable Care Act and able to make my own choices about what was right for my body.

Unfortunately, that was going to come to an end. I knew I needed to do whatever I could to protect myself before it was too late and birth control became something too expensive to maintain on a monthly basis.

I made an appointment with Planned Parenthood for December of 2016 to get an IUD, without knowing much other than I could be protected for up to twelve years with a one time procedure. For the time being, it was covered, meaning that my IUD would be completely free. It seemed almost stupid not to do it.

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Today will be my last day as Web Developer in WNET’s Interactive Engagement Group, just two weeks shy of my two year anniversary. Monday, August 1, will be my first day as Documentation Editor at Joyent.

I had been thinking about my next move for a while – I suppose you could call it the two-year itch, the one that young professionals seem to get early in their careers. For the first time in my life, I was being actively recruited by various organizations looking for front-end developers (or back-end engineers, for which I was not the right fit). Recruitment is a funny thing. It’s nice to start practicing what it will be like when you put yourself out there for new positions, as well as potentially open an opportunity that you may not have come across otherwise.

Joyent came to me through a more old-fashioned method: in-person networking. Instead of a recruitment email, it was me sitting at the hotel bar after the first day of O’Reilly’s Velocity Conference and talking to a potential new friend about ourselves and our goals for the conference. I did a good enough job convincing this gentleman that I believe in the importance of documentation for developers, so much so that it sent me down a path of phone calls and interviews about a role they were just creating for someone just like me.

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