Today within our #insidesigmatechnology interviews, we talk with Aniko Simon, a technical writer at Sigma Technology Hungary. Aniko shared her impressions regarding the SPIE conference in Orlando she recently participated in and told us more about her research on documentation and the related end-user behavior.
Tell us about yourself. What is your professional background?
I am a computer engineer. I received my M.Sc. degree from the Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME) in 2015, where I studied telecommunication networks and cyber security at the Department of Networked Systems and Services (HIT). For my thesis, I worked on mobile software development.
Tell us more about your research. What topics do you cover?
In the research efforts, we address different hypotheses of technical communication with my fellow researchers. First, we mainly focus on device documentation supplied to a user. In our latest published work – presented at the SPIE conference in Orlando – we investigated objective quality metrics and attributes of the documentation of smart wearable devices and addressed the related end-user behavior. In one of our current research efforts, we consider device-related user satisfaction and explore users’ engagement with device manuals. The long-term goals of the research are to understand the documentation-related needs of the users better and contribute to shaping the best practices in the industry. It is important to investigate such research questions further since there are still so many issues we are merely scratching the surface. Not to mention numerous potential hypotheses that are overlooked by the scientific community, yet studying them may benefit both the industry and the users.
What are your impressions about the SPIE conference you have recently taken part in?
Read more about Aniko’s speaker experience at the SPIE conference here.
I think the conference was impressive, and the organizers did an outstanding job. The session leaders were well prepared, and the audience was very interested in the numerous topics covered by the conference. Two of my fellow researchers also attended the conference, and they presented 5 works in total, mainly in the topic of 3D visualization technologies. In addition to the exciting scientific conference, the exhibition featured a diverse selection of the industry, ranging from smaller companies to corporations with multi-billion-dollar annual revenues. Personally, I think the conference and the exhibition locations were quite spectacular.
What’s your current role, and what assignment do you have there?
At Sigma Technology Hungary, I am currently a technical writer on a project within the telecom industry. Besides my daily work, I also participate in release-related tasks (e.g., building CPI libraries).
How do you see the evolution of product information for your industry?
The best practices of technical communication are continuously evolving. This evolution enables higher levels of documentation-usage efficiency through user-centric technical writing. Additionally, it is apparent how automatization affects the various product development and service provisioning tasks. I believe that automation will assist technical writing as well, yet I expect it to remain a predominantly manual activity.