User documentation example #1
Brought on to develop the user and reference guides for the new columnar analytics service at Couchbase (GA 3Q2024), I was able to take on a small project for the 7.6 release of Couchbase Capella: I wrote the documentation and assisted with the API copy for their first webhook, which sends alerts to ServiceNow for routing and prioritization. As new features for established products tend to do, this work uncovered some flaws in the existing alert reference, so I worked with the team to categorize and correct the listed alerts.
User documentation example #2
A project at Tamr (2023) was to document a new, optional step that was added to an established, and complex, machine learning-assisted process. I worked closely with the software and quality engineers to understand the nuances of the options and computations, and delivered microcopy and early testing as well as this user guide topic.
API example
The comments in this edX pull request (2015) show how I collaborate with engineer and other team members to collect information, investigate inconsistencies, and otherwise prepare documentation for an API.
Information Architecture
At Toast (2018), I participated in a gap analysis and information architecture redesign project, including gathering information with a card sorting test. To fill identified gaps, I went on to write the initial versions of the Toast Getting Started guide and the Glossary, and wrote and tested all content for the Access permissions reference. These projects were in addition to the main objective of my contract, writing documentation for the completely redesigned kitchen display system.
Open Source Data and Analytics
While at edX I wrote two guides to assist people doing educational research, the EdX Research Guide (now rebranded edX Data Package) and Using edX Insights. The research guide is a reference to the raw data that edX makes available to researchers at partner institutions, while the edX Insights product makes near-live metrics and data visualizations available to course team members with a broad range of experience with analytics.
For additional writing samples that match your needs, please email me: ahodges [at sign] erlea [dot] pro
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