{"product_id":"wicked-incomplete-and-uncertain-jason-swarts-9781607327615","title":"Wicked, Incomplete, and Uncertain: User Support in the Wild and the Role of Technical Communication","description":"Technology users are compulsive integrators, hybridizers, and bricoleurs, whose unpredictable applications and innovations create a challenging task for support-documentation writers. In \u003ci\u003eWicked, Incomplete, and Uncertain\u003c\/i\u003e, Jason Swarts shows how to document technologies that may hybridize into forms that not even their designers would have anticipated and offers insight into the evolving role of a technical writer in an age of increasing user reliance on YouTube tutorials, message boards, and other resources for guidance. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Technical writers traditionally create large volumes of idealized tasks and procedures in help documentation, but this is no longer the only approach, or even the best approach. Shifting responsibility for user support to users via crowdsourcing is a risky alternative. Just as with other mass-collaborative enterprises, contributors to a forum may not be aware of the kind of knowledge they are creating or how their contributions connect with those made by others. \u003ci\u003eWicked, Incomplete, and Uncertain \u003c\/i\u003edescribes the kinds of writing and help practices in which user forums engage, why users seem to find these forums credible and appealing, and what companies can learn about building user communities to support this form of assistance. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Through investigation of user-forum activities, Swarts identifies a new set of contributions that technical communicators can make--not only by creating content but also by curating content, shaping conversations, feeding information back into the user community, and opening channels of discovery and knowledge creation that can speak to users and software developers alike\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Jason Swarts\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 1607327619\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781607327615\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Utah State University Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 09\/11\/2018\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 171\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.60lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.20h x 6.00w x 0.50d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eChoice\u003c\/i\u003e 03\/01\/2019","brand":"Jason Swarts","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":48088636817663,"sku":"9781607327615","price":25.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_8478ee85-da76-4885-a23a-68c75f91744b.jpg?v=1769105848","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/wicked-incomplete-and-uncertain-jason-swarts-9781607327615","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}