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Uwana Ikaiddi, Manager, Developer Documentation at BigCommerce, joins us in this episode of Knowledgebase Ninja Podcast to share her approach API-First and OAS approach for success in documentation, the importance of thinking like a developer as a technical writer and how open sourcing helps in documentation success. Check out all the other episodes here.
Key Facts
- Uwana’s LinkedIn
- BigCommerce’s website
- Uwana holds a Master’s Degree in Technical Communication from the University of Central Florida
- Uwana creates SOPs (standard operating procedures) for documentation specialists
- Uwana has been associated with technical documentation for over a decade
- BigCommerce is one of the largest eCommerce platforms
Key Takeaways
- Uwana holds a Masters’ Degree in Technical Communication from the University of Central Florida
- Uwana has been associated with the technical documentation industry for over a decade now
- At BigCommerce, Uwana’s major KPI is creating SOPs and QA mechanisms for documentation specialists
- At BigCommerce, the documentation specialists thoroughly follow each stage of the documentation development lifecycle
- The technical writers at BigCommerce collaborate with various teams simultaneously, including the product, engineering, marketing, learning and development, and customer services teams
- Uwana and her team consider a lot of variables while creating a technical document. However, their primary focus is to combine all the variables towards achieving the ultimate goal, which is ensuring the successful rollout of a product
- Uwana shares that subject matter experts play a major role in producing quality documentation and managing workflow
- Uwana believes that the accuracy, clarity, and readability of documentation defines its quality
- Uwana shares two major innovations in technical communications;
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- API-first (application programming interface) approach that ensures the collaboration of technical writers
- OAS (open automation software) approach that helps in selecting the data sources, product features, and data destinations
- BigCommerce has small but effective documentation teams. It consists of four lead writers and two to five writers reporting to each lead
- Uwana says that the provided resources may vary from company to company
- BigCommerce is present in several locations with its sister concerns. Therefore, BigCommerce technical documentation teams ensure that respective regulations are adhered to in order to avoid any possible federal violations
- BigCommerce is focused on open-sourcing the documents to ensure that the real-time data is accessible for the users
- The ratio between organic and planned traffic at BigCommerce remains 50% for each
- Uwana shares that technical writers should understand the developers’ journey to steer documentation creation from a challenge to an achievement
Uwana’s biggest influences
- Adam DuVander – Principal Consultant at EveryDeveloper
- Tom Johnson – I’d Rather Be Writing
- Uwana believes that she has learned the most from “ACTUALIZE – The coding boot camp”. She learned to “think like a developer” and “build solutions” instead of simply documenting them.
Key resource
- KCS Academy (Knowledge-Centric Service)
- I’d Rather Be Writing
- API-first (application programming interface) approach
- OAS (open automation software) approach
- BigCommerce
Also Read: Ultimate Guide To Create an API Documentation with Examples
What documentation-related advice would Uwana give to his 20-year-old self?
“Don’t be afraid to ask the silly questions.” This makes you more comfortable and confident in content creation.
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