In this post I’ll briefly explain my experience as a new technical writer working as an intern for a software company, and my approach to improving the onboarding experience for future interns learning Oxygen XML Editor.
I went back to school, ended up at Algonquin College’s Technical Writer program, and looked around for co-op opportunities when the time came. I had the choice between working in the private or public sector, and decided to go private to learn about the up-to-date tools and processes that technical writers in the software industry today use. This was big for me for multiple reasons:
- I had never worked in a team before professionally (I worked as a teacher, and had almost complete autonomy).
- I haven’t worked in a software company before, or experienced the agile environment.
- This is a career change, and I’m stepping into unknown territory.
It took adjustment, but after a week I was settling in. Since I started in Tecsys (supply chain solutions software) two years into the pandemic, the onboarding process was constantly being improved by the tech writing team.
A tool that was central to my decision to choose Tecsys was that they use Oxygen XML Editor to develop content. I’ve heard about it here and there as a student, and played around with Adobe FrameMaker, but never created anything with it.
I’m a tactile learner, and I want to try fooling around with whatever it is I’m learning just to figure out how it works. Ironically, reading blocks of paragraphs about how something works from a manual isn’t the best way for me to learn. So, how did I learn to use Oxygen at Tecsys? I was given a task to complete something, and I just dove in headfirst without knowing completely how to do it.
Learning how to use the tool while learning at the same time how to do the work was tough, but was the best way for me to learn. When teaching my students, I try to make them slightly uncomfortable so they don’t learn because they want to, but because they need to for survival. Like a dad teaching how to swim by throwing the kid into the pool. You will learn. Using Oxygen when I had no idea how powerful it could be felt like jumping into the deep end.
Of course, I got tons of help from my team when I needed it and I’m extremely thankful that they took time out of their busy day to answer my dumb questions. But when it came time for the next intern to come in after my departure and I was tasked with improving the onboarding experience, I wanted to do something interactive for my learning style for learning Oxygen.
What I decided to create was a training experience within Oxygen itself.
As the learner navigates through the training, they are also learning about how to use Oxygen at the same time. The training also simulates a sandbox where the learner can fool around within it without any consequences. The task topics all have walkthroughs in the form of comments that guide them.
Not only was this a great opportunity for me to realize all that I’ve learned in 5 months from the ground up, but I was able to leave the onboarding process better than when I came across it. It feels good to know that I’m leaving something behind that can help someone else in the future. Then they themselves will continue to build on it and so on.
If you want to check it out, you can find it on my portfolio here.
Technical Kevin 