What do we do in our jobs? For years I've tried to explain to my mother what my field is all about. But when she talks about me to her friends she likes to summarize it by saying, "He's in computers." And invariably those friends nod their heads and reply "That's the thing these days you know." Even among our peers we tend to summarize our work as "technical writing" or "help authoring" or some other broad term. Part of the problem with describing our work is that there are so many disparate tasks involved in reaching the end product. We regularly dip into a broad palette of skills and technologies to render a wide variety of user assistance components.

So this survey is all about identifying what we collectively deem as the specific elements of our work that are of most importance to us. How many of us are still using WinHelp? How many are going to browser-based solutions? What emphasis do we place on writing conceptual information? What platforms do we support? Which tools do we find the most useful?

We formed a list of questions to elicit these kinds of answers and the resulting survey was published in June 2000 for a two-week period. Over 1,300 people responded to our call, providing us with a great data sample size. What you have in front of you is a synthesis of the results. We're presenting our analysis in five different sections: Technologies, Skills, Platforms, Tools, and Applications. The links in the gold box take you to the discussions of each of these areas.

Enjoy the information. We hope it is useful to you. Please send me any feedback you have on the survey, the results, or the analysis.

Methodology

The survey was published on the WinWriters Web site for two weeks in June. You can view the original survey.

We required email addresses from respondents to ensure submissions were authentic and unique. Our privacy policy regarding this information was included on the survey page.

This study comes with a couple of caveats. First, the majority of respondents are most likely customers of WinWriters. Most of the responses came on the heels of email broadcasts we made to our mailing list. However, the WinWriters constituency is large and probably is a fair representation of the overall Help community. Second, this survey is intended to represent the interests of technical writers involved in software user assistance and may not be representative of the technical communication community at large.

Raffle Winners

Thanks to all who participated in the survey. We randomly chose several of our participants to receive prizes. Here are the winners!

Grand Prize - An expenses-paid trip to Santa Clara, CA, as well as a free registration for the 2001 WinWriters Online Help Conference

Marci Yesowitch of InterSystems from Cambridge, MA. Marci is originally from Louisville, KY, now living in the Boston area. She has a fondness for dogs, romance novels, and What's This? Help. She also likes music, Internet Relay Chat, and playing on the Internet. In her wildest fantasies she runs her own bookstore, and in her starkest realities she plans birthday parties for her friends. She's heavily addicted to technotoys like her DVD player and her palmtop computer. If you're still curious about who she is, check out her webpage at www.netway.com/~marci.

A free registration for the 2000 Help Technology Conference

• Marge Norris, Dept. of V.A. - Dallas IOFO — Grand Prarie, TX

A free registration for the 2001 WinWriters Online Help Conference

• Mary Bradford, IT Corporation — Knoxville, TN
• Christine Quiriy, Bell Atlantic

A free Help system critique by Joe Welinske

• Amy Germain, Compuware — Farmington Hills, MI
• Deborah Grogan — Santa Clara, CA

A copy of Developing Online Help for Windows 95

• Kathy Wyrwas, Unisys — Plymouth, MI

A copy of the video Confessions of a Help Author

• Travis Bolander, Creo Products — Burnaby, BC, Canada
• Carla Burris, IBM — Bridgeton, MO
• Matthew Ellison, Digitext — Thames, Oxon, U.K.
• Sybil Graham, Fundtech Corp. — Norcross, GA
• Geri Moran — Elmsford, NY
• Erica Reiss, Northern Trust — Chicago, IL
• Fred Shelabarger, Caterpillar, Inc — Peoria, IL

A one-year subscription to The Online Help Journal

• John Hoppe, KPMG — Boston, MA
• Loren Meicher, Timeslips/SAGE US Holdings — Essex, MA
• Ronnie Seagren, IBM — Toronto, ON, Canada
• Ananda Stevens, Wind River — Downers Grove, IL
• Are Olai Underdal, Tulsoft AS — Norway
• Linda Urban — Berkeley, CA
• Tammy Van Boening, Evolving Systems — Englewood, CO