Presented by

  • Lana Brindley

    Lana Brindley
    @Loquacities

    Lana has been writing open source documentation for much longer than she or anyone else cares to think about, and is currently gainfully employed by Timescale. She is passionate about great writing, information architecture, content strategy, docs as code, and Agile documentation. She is currently riding out the pandemic at her home on the Gold Coast, Australia, where she lives with a teenager and a mentally challenged but often adorable feline. Sometimes the teenager is adorable, too.

Abstract

As technical writers, we already know that choosing the right words is important, and we also know that the style and layout of our pages matters. The third leg of the stool is information architecture: getting the right content, in the right place, at the right time. Great information architecture not only helps readers navigate our docs properly, but also influences whether they have a good or bad experience, helps them feel good about your company or product, and can even help them to find information they didn't know they were looking for. Additionally, good information architecture can help you improve your SEO, improve dwell time on your site, and reduce bounce rates. In this talk, Lana will discuss how to assess your current information architecture, work out what information architecture your docs require, and how to implement it for the best results. Whether you are working with an aging docs suite, or starting fresh, if you can choose the right words, this talk will help you work out where to put them.