Category Archives: Visual

Easel.ly

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Easel.ly is a simple web tool for creating and sharing infographics, posters, and other visuals with no design experience needed. They provide the canvas, you provide the creativity.

How it is useful to technical communicators:

While perhaps not ideal for high-end designs, Easel.ly is an excellent tool for quickly creating vibrant, punchy infographics that convey information through organized visual templates. Use Easel.ly for presentations, as visual aids accompanying other information, or for general diagramming and flowcharts.

Learn more:

You can access Easel.ly on any web browser http://www.easel.ly/. Both free and pro ($3/month) account options are available.

Other software like it:

Infogr.am, Visual.ly

Sway

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Sway is a Microsoft software for presentations and storytelling. I wanted a jazzier presentation format for a Digital Humanities project, one that would let me embed multimedia components and stretch across a four-wall 360 presentation space. It had to be shareable over the web.  Learn more at Getting Started with Sway.

Similar tools to consider include Microsoft PowerPoint and Prezi.

Marqueed

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Marqueed is a Web application that allows users to share image files and comment on and mark-up those image files.

Marqueed is useful for collaborating on images remotely. While numerous tools exist for commenting on and editing text with others online, fewer tools are available that allow users to comment on and edit images online. As the jobs of technical communicators expand beyond producing text—and as technical communication jobs move to remote workspaces—collaboration tools such as Marqueed become more valuable.

You can sign up for an account and begin using Marqueed on the product’s Web site.

Google Drive can be used in a similar fashion, but it is not designed specifically with discussing images in mind.

GoVisually is a similar Web application to Marqueed that has a few more features but with a less simple design and use.

Canva

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Canva is a basic drag-and-drop graphic design software that lets you produce graphics for web or print.

How it is useful to technical communicators:

Technical communicators can use Canva to create web or print graphics, like profile and cover photos, flyers, ads, web banners, and social media posts.

Learn more:

You can access Canva on any web browser at www.canva.com. Users can create a basic account for free, or you can subscribe to a Canva for Work account for a fee.

Other software like it:

Google Drawing

Camtasia

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Camtasia provides screen recording and video editing tools to create professional videos. You can record movements on the screen, or import existing video files to edit.

How it is useful to technical communicators:

Camtasia can be used for creating instructional videos.

Where you can learn more about it:

You can learn more about Camtasia and purchase the software through the TechSmith website.

Other software like it:

Jing, SnagIt