Write the Docs Prague 2019 wrapup

This week I attended Write the Docs Prague, in the lovely city of Prague. While at the conference, I blogged about some of the sessions and spoke to many interesting people. This post is a summary of the event, with links to posts about specific sessions.

Write the Docs is a community of people interested in technical documentation. The heart of Write the Docs is a series of meetups in various parts of the world. There are also a few annual conferences in Australia, Europe, and the US. You don’t need to join an organisation. Just join a meetup, and then turn up.

Write the Docs focuses on documentation rather than on technical writing. The community explicitly welcomes anyone with an interest in technical documentation, including technical writers, engineers, UX designers, editors, and more.

The haps at Write the Docs Prague

This is the sixth year of European Write the Docs conferences, and the fourth time the conference has been held in Prague. There were approximately 300 attendees this year – the biggest year yet.

These are the notes I took from some of the sessions I attended:

Localisation of open source docs, by Zachary Sarah Corleissen
Empathy in support documentation, by Plamena Maleva
Mapping user experience, by Aaron Collier
Tech writing in developing nations, by Prerana Pradhan
Docs as code and the UK government, by Jen Lambourne
The language of data privacy, by Karen Sawrey
API docs before the API exists, by Ben Ahmady
Docs for startups, by Brian Lemke
The perfect error message, by James Scott
The writing process of Grammy-winning artists, by Kayla Lee

Lightning talks tend to go a little fast for note-taking, so I didn’t blog about them. Thanks to everyone who gave a lightning talk. They were entertaining and informative. I did one myself about doc sprints:

Slides: The story of a doc sprint, by Sarah Maddox
Blog post: How to run a doc sprint

The venue

Write the Docs Prague took place at the the Autoclub Prague (Opletalova 29, Prague 1). The outside of the building looks a little forbidding, but if you look closely at the doorway you’ll see a welcoming sign: Write the Docs Prague: You made it!

[image error]

The building originates from 1929. It’s an automobile club, and it also hosts dances and music concerts.

Inside is all colour and style. This is the main hall, looking towards the stage where the talks happened:

[image error]

The next view looks from the stage towards the back of the hall:

[image error]

Being an autoclub, the venue has a few interesting bikes scattered around. These two are Harley Davidsons, manufactured during WWII:

[image error]

The pre-conference boat trip

The pre-conference boat trip has become a tradition for Write the Docs Prague. Around 70 documentarians boarded for a two-hour trip up the Vltava river. That’s an L not an i in Vltava. Evidently the name comes from the Old Germanic wilt ahwa, which means wild water.

Looking towards the bow:

[image error]

Looking aft:

[image error]

The Vltava river runs through the centre of Prague. Eighteen bridges cross the river in the city. One of them is the historic Charles Bridge:

[image error]

The next photo shows the Jiráskův bridge, with a view of the Dancing House (the skew white and grey building) beyond the bridge towards the left of the photo:

[image error]

Thanks

Thank you to the organizers, speakers, and attendees of Write the Docs Prague 2019. The conference was a lovely experience. The highpoint for me was meeting some interesting, quietly amazing people.