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AI Summary
- Uwana Ikaiddi, Manager, Developer Documentation at BigCommerce, has over a decade of technical documentation experience and holds a Master’s Degree in Technical Communication from the University of Central Florida.
- At BigCommerce, her major KPI is creating SOPs and QA mechanisms. Documentation specialists follow each stage of the documentation development lifecycle and collaborate with product, engineering, marketing, learning and development, and customer services teams.
- Uwana identifies accuracy, clarity, and readability as documentation quality measures. Subject matter experts support quality documentation and workflow management, while the ultimate goal is a successful product rollout.
- She highlights the API-first approach for technical-writer collaboration and the OAS approach for selecting data sources, product features, and data destinations. BigCommerce also focuses on open-sourcing documents for real-time user access.
- Uwana advises technical writers to understand the developers’ journey and “Don’t be afraid to ask the silly questions.”
AI-generated content. It may contain errors.
See Document360 in action
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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