Working in tech
The job behind the screens: the words we use, the rooms we meet in, the places we learned the trade.
Reflections on thirty years in tech: as a writer, a designer, a developer and a user.
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Where engineering met documentation
The Society for Technical Communication taught a trade without a school. In 2025 it closed.
Nobody studied to become a technical writer when I started. You came from languages, from literature, from journalism, or you were an engineer who happened to write the manual because nobody else would. I came from…
Working in tech
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Nobody calls themselves a user
Where the word “user” came from, what it does to how we design, and where it still belongs
Early on, when usability was still new and a little bit cool, I worked for a firm called Using It. We were among the first to test websites and software with real people, and to sell interface design as a service.
Working in tech