Technical Writers: between developers and applications
By: Macarena Magnano
Tags: Ecommerce, Technical Writing, Mercado Libre, Documentation, Mercado Livre

What have we studied? What do we do? But better still… What value do we create for users and how do we impact worldwide ecommerce? This article sums up our experience as Technical Writers at Mercado Libre and Global Selling Developers. Let ‘s go!

First, the not-so-good news: there is still no Technical Writer career in renowned institutions, in part probably due to the fact we have diverse profiles. The good news? There are a myriad of online courses that you can explore on related topics.

Are we developers? No, but we really do know about our products. We have the challenge to create the technical documentation (clear, reader-friendly, and with quick references) and to communicate about the communication tools used by developers.

Are we writers? Yes, because we know the importance of having a product styled around Mercado Libre’s voice for technical contents. Besides, it is very important to know about UX or User Experience since our products are texts and we have to get a good feel of how users manage this information.

As you can see, all these areas define us, but how do Technical Writers and UX Writers differ in Mercado Libre? It is simple: in the type of content we work with and the developers community to whom we speak.

So in fact, what do we do?

We devise and create content for developer platform sites, edit technical documentation, write communications and maintain updates for our developers or partners’ community.

We have mainly two types of partners: those integrations whose clients are sellers and those large sellers with their own development team using Mercado Libre technology to operate: sell, communicate with buyers, manage their finances and invoices, and obtain metrics on their business in Latin America.

“Technical writers are rare hybrids, possessing an uncommon mixture of talents” — Technical Writing Google

Mercado Libre & Global Selling Developers

Today, in Mercado Libre its different BUs like Mercado Pago (most of the unit) have sites for developers where we publicize our APIs, how to use them and scale the seller business in the marketplace ecosystem. From Supply — Open Platform we create and manage the content and news of APIs in Mercado Libre Developers and Global Selling Developers also called Cross Border Trade.

The difference?

With Mercado Libre Developers team we watch over the quality of the APIs, since they are used by local LATAM integrations (or applications) to offer services similar to those in our marketplace to large sellers in Latin America. For example, an IT company uses the Mercado Libre technology (APIs) to sell metrics services to sellers that want to have this data in their online business. The most important applications go through a certification process called Developer Partner Program and you can see all certified applications in the App Store of Mercado Libre.

At Global Selling Developers we work to empower international sellers, for example from China and the United States, who wish to expand their businesses in Latin America (México, Brazil, Colombia and Chile) through Mercado Libre solutions (marketplace, payments and shipments). How? By using our APIs.

Do developers or sellers use the same APIs?

They are partly the same; they share some functionalities and differ in others. What they have in common is that the product offered and the user experience aim to be the same, i.e. we want all sellers in LATAM to have the same sales experience regardless of the country they live in.

What differs is that the architecture of our APIs requires changes and adaptations because local and global seller experience needs different attention. So the challenge is there: write for both types of developers or sellers with the same voice and tone that allows us to offer the same purchase experience regardless of whether it is operating with a national or international seller.

Look and measure

Of course, we measure our performance, receive feedback on documentation, make continuous improvements, hold feedback meetings and much more. One of the latest news has been that our users have the possibility of writing their feedback in our documentation, measuring how useful it’s been and including their improvements. This helps us to have a concrete measurement and contact with improvements on examples, content, JSONs, etc.

“What can be measured, can be improved”

In addition, we have other metrics by Google Analytics which allow us to understand user behavior on our site and the languages that have more impact in visits in each country. All this provides us with insights for improving the way we explain our features and Mercado Libre services. For instance, in general we have good look-and-feel documentation but we do not have where to see the latest changes in docs. Thus, we have to reuse a News page for a Changelog where developers can see the month to month subdivided into “New resources”, “News” and “Good practices”.

How do we generate impact?

Working as a team, we coordinate initiatives aimed at improving developer experience by finding the simplest way to tell them how to develop solutions and the benefits of doing so. Many times and thanks to our Developer Partner Program, we manage that applications adapt the initiatives and the sellers get these services to offer them the best experience.

The Developer Partner Program

It is the program whereby we certify applications in categories like Certified, Silver, Gold and Platinum according to certain requirements based on their users, earnings, NPS (Net Promoter Score) and features implementation of their performance in our marketplace.

And as Technical Writers we also have the challenge to communicate technical news, events like technical webinars about specific features, recommendations and other notices about the development that we need from them and the business that the seller is going to see.

Therefore, whenever we think about our impact, it will be related to the joint effort of the Product team, API Experts, Development Partners, Developer Experience and us, the Technical Writers.

If after reading this article, you are curious about how to undertake technical writing, know more about any specific platform or write an article without running too serious risks, leave a clap clap. 👏