Write the Docs Portland 2024
2024-04-14..2024-04-16
Portland, United States
[Write the Docs Portland 2018, Write the Docs Portland 2020, Write the Docs Portland 2021, Write the Docs Portland 2022, Write the Docs Portland 2023, Write the Docs Portland 2024, Write the Docs Portland 2025, Write the Docs Portland 2026]
as the organisers put it
Portland 2024 Recap - Talk Videos, Photos, Sketchnotes, CoC Report- April 24, 2024, Welcome to Write the Docs Portland 2024- April 09, 2024, Meet the first Writing Day 2024 Projects- April 03, 2024...
who it's for
technical writers, docs engineers, documentation managers, developer experience engineers, product managers, engineering managers, ux designers
topics
MDX live code in markdown; Markdoc author validation; four-stage OpenAPI workflow; in-product help with Pendo; documentation quality DORA metrics; docs in CI/CD pipelines; search SEO and rel=canonical issues; startup documentation template; agile story points for writing; modular tutorials and reusable graphics; federated internal documentation platform; semantic content strategies
| title | author | length |
|---|---|---|
| Graphic Relief: Beyond Flowcharts and Screenshots | Dennis Dawson | 40m |
Reorganized docs add navigation cards and a short introduction, replace dense flows with consistent metaphorical illustrations, and split tutorials so UI is… | ||
| Code in Content: Using Dynamic, Interactive Elements in your Technical Writing | Taylor Krusen | 41m |
Claims that embedding runnable code into markdown improves learning by making examples concrete, and shows two real toolchains: MDX (JSX components inside… | ||
| Applying Engineering Principles to Technical Writing | Mario Morales | 32m |
Argues that technical writing is engineering problem solving and gives concrete practices: model systems as an engineering blackbox, inventory inputs and… | ||
| Lightning Talks - Day 1 | Ashley Gordon, Jewel Darger-Sacher, Matthew Brandabur, Jessamy Taylor, Manny Silva | 26m |
Lightning set delivers concrete takeaways: one project convinces 105 colleagues helped and reports 542 reviewed, 250 archived with a public spreadsheet and a… | ||
| Misadventures in SEO: How to self-sabotage your documentation | Steven Hicks | 40m |
Documentation site with ~25 historical versions loses search for core term bpmn after switching to a Google programmable search engine and accidentally… | ||
| Quantifying the Impact of Documentation: Findings from DORA Research | Michelle Irvine | 39m |
DORA research measures internal documentation as one composite quality score (from eight attributes) and ties it to concrete outcomes: teams with high-quality… | ||
| Beyond Words: Strategies for Leveling Up Your Tech Writing Career | Calvin Fung | 39m |
Claim: preparing a documented case wins promotions — one person gets promoted after meticulously documented achievements. Builds three reusable artifacts: a… | ||
| Case study: How we delivered a seamless in-product help experience | Candy Morton | 36m |
Delivers a concrete integration: Zoomin for Pendo merges the in‑app widget with Pendo’s Resource Center so users never leave the product, with content pulled… | ||
| A Strategic Documentation Template for Startups | Sofiya Minnath | 39m |
A three‑phase template untangles messy startup docs: diagnose content, tools, and people; plan/prioritize with impact vs effort and 70 to 30 allocation of… | ||
| The Four Stages of OpenAPI | Robert Delwood | 40m |
Explains a practical four-stage OpenAPI workflow: convert legacy Word docs into a compilable OpenAPI file, then maintain and enrich the reference forever, plus… | ||
| "The vibes were off": Adapting Agile story points estimation to technical writing | Tom Edmonds | 40m |
Adapts story points to technical writing by building a team-specific scoring rubric, storing scores in Jira number field and importing results with the Jira… | ||
| Sociological considerations in designing an internal documentation platform | Alistair Gray | 37m |
Engineers report 25 different platforms causing fragmentation, so an internal platform called Trailhead is built as the coordination point. Trailhead enforces… | ||
| Lightning Talks - Day 2 | August Lindgren-Ruby, Jo Richards, Colin Loretz, Rick Larsen, Kim Wallace | 28m |
Five quick pitches: a concrete claim that semantic line breaks make git diffs readable with examples comparing single-line paragraphs to per-thought lines and… | ||
| Design Reviews, capturing context at speed | Shawn Aldridge | 39m |
A design-review workflow records proposals before work starts, standardizes templates, and automates publishing so context survives autonomy and churn; teams… | ||
| Make It Make Semantic Sense: Semantic Strategies for All of Us | Nellie McKesson | 41m |
Clear, consistent semantic labels power automated conversions so one source turns into PDFs ebooks and websites; real examples include docs written in Asciidoc… | ||
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