Continuing our Meet the Team series, we are excited to introduce Emma Ryland, Technical Content Manager who plays a vital role in making Open Ocean STUDIO intuitive and accessible, ensuring users can easily navigate and maximise the platform’s capabilities. Emma and her team ensure that 90POE’s documentation stays ahead of the curve, using agile workflows and a continuous publishing model to keep up with rapid industry changes.
With a passion for language and learning, Emma’s career has taken her from defence aviation to maritime technology, combining her love for knowledge with the challenge of simplifying complex information. She’s a firm believer that great documentation starts with the user’s goals, breaking down information into clear content.
What inspired you to pursue a career in technical content, and how did your journey lead you to 90POE?
I love learning and I’ve always been fascinated by language. I soaked up information like a sponge as a kid, even reading the dictionary at one point. My career has allowed me to combine those passions into something tangible. I get to be nosy, ask questions, learn something new every day, and pass that knowledge on to our users. To me, that’s just incredible. I started my career in the defence aviation industry, so I’ve moved from the air to the sea, stopping off at a few other ports on the way. Not bad for someone who originally did a law degree. What drew me to 90POE wasn’t just the whole ethos around making the industry safer and more sustainable, but the chance to work with an amazingly talented group of people who believe passionately that what we’re building can make a real difference. With 90% of everything we consume still moving around the globe by sea, it’s a huge undertaking and one I’m proud to be part of.
With digital transformation in full swing, how do you see AI and automation influencing technical content creation in the coming years?
I think AI and automation are becoming a big part of our writing toolbox. Both offer huge gains in terms of accelerating content generation and simplifying/streamlining processes, enabling us, as writers, to do more. Taking screenshots, capturing “How to” processes, transcribing conversations, and turning demo recordings into usable early drafts of content are just some examples of how AI is already helping to improve content output. When you combine AI with the skills of writers who are experts in their field, the possibilities are endless.
Clear and accessible documentation is key to user success - what strategies do you use to ensure complex information is easy to understand?
Always start with the question “What is the user trying to achieve?” Focus on helping the user achieve that goal. Break the info down into small, manageable chunks of information. Anticipate the questions a user might ask and use those questions as headings for those chunks. Keep the conceptual content separate from the task-based content; that way a user can go and read more about the why and what, if and when they want to. Focus on the language you use when you write. Avoid jargon. Remember that words aren’t always the best medium. Use flow diagrams, videos, and other interactive content to explain the complex.
Maritime technology is evolving rapidly - how do you keep technical documentation up to date with new features and regulations?
We’ve adopted what I call a “light touch” docs-as-code approach to creating and updating our documentation at 90POE. We’re deeply embedded with our software development teams and use many of the same dev tools and processes to write, version, and release our content. Our systems allow us to be tremendously agile, publishing new and updated documentation completely independently of our software releases. In essence, we’re operating a true continuous publishing model, releasing updated documentation whenever we want to. This, alongside the dedication of my amazing team of writers and our incredible SME’s, is what enables us to keep up in an industry where change happens at such a rapid rate.
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