Looking ahead to ACM SIGDOC

Conference are a great way to stay up-to-date with what’s happening in your field. You can learn about new methods, discuss common challenges, and listen to insightful conversations with experts. One conference that we’re looking forward to is SIGDOC 2026, sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery, to be held in St. Paul, Minnesota, from October 23 to 24. As the conference website explains, SIGDOC’s mission is to advance the state of knowledge, encourage the research, and support the interdisciplinary practice of the design of communication. It’s an excellent conference opportunity for technical writers, content strategists, and anyone else with a communication role.

We reached out to several of the organizers to learn more about what to expect at this year’s conference: Luke Thominet is an Associate Professor of Writing and Rhetoric at Florida International University in Miami and Chair of ACM SIGDOC. Ashley Hardin is a senior content strategist at Red Hat and is an industry liaison for ACM SIGDOC. Morgan Banville is an Assistant Professor of English at Fairfield University in Connecticut. Elena Kalodner-Martin is an Assistant Professor in the Writing, Rhetoric, and Literacy program at The Ohio State University. Morgan and Elena serve as the Program Co-Chairs. Quan Zhou is a Professor in the Department of Communication at Metropolitan State University in St. Paul, and serves as the Conference Chair of the ACM SIGDOC 2026 conference.

Let’s start with introductions. What are your roles with SIGDOC?

Luke Thominet:

A lot of what I do is background work to keep the organization running. I work with our executive committee to set organizational priorities, consult with the conference team on programming and logistics, and serve as our primary liaison with ACM. There’s also a bunch of other little tasks in there like annual reports, running our grants and awards, and so forth. Honestly, it’s good work for an organization I truly value and believe in.

Ashley Hardin:

As an industry liaison for ACM SIGDOC, I strive to bring industry perspectives into SIGDOC business discussions and initiatives. My role is that of a connector: helping to pull academics and practitioners together to learn from each other. I’m also an active member of the ACM SIGDOC Structured Authoring Committee, which develops free, open source resources for those teaching and learning structured authoring. These resources include curriculum support tools, sample content, learning paths, and more. We host a series of online workshops, which are free to SIGDOC members. I think the work that we do in the committee is truly a microcosm of all of the industry-academia collaboration that happens across the organization.

Also new this year is SIGDOC’s addition of a second industry liaison, Kat Reierson. This move reflects SIGDOC’s commitment to incorporating important industry perspectives. Kat currently manages the Product Documentation team at Docusign, and I am excited to work with her to help advance SIGDOC’s mission and define new ways in which we can promote collaboration between academic programs in technical communication and industry professionals.

Morgan Banville and Elena Kalodner-Martin:

We are responsible for providing the editorial vision for the conference including drafting the CFP, identifying and recruiting reviewers, and managing the conference abstract review process and conference proceedings review process. We are responsible for producing the proceedings including determining the best paper award(s) and producing the program for the conference, including layout and gathering of content, and creation of the schedule. We also had the pleasure of launching a new mentorship program during proposal season to support those who are seeking additional guidance on developing their work. We are hopeful that such a program will continue in future years.

Quan Zhou:

As conference chair, I work with program co-chairs and members of the executive committee, as well as folks at my host institution, to plan and deliver the conference. I’m also excited to be working with local partners (Clare Housing and the Hmong American Partnership) who participate in the Design Justice Grants by providing a project for scholars to engage with the community. As Professor, I teach technical communication, information design, and user experience. I am the founder of the graduate certificate in the Design of User Experience at Metro State University. I can’t wait to showcase some of our innovative programs at this year’s conference.

What is the SIGDOC conference?

SIGDOC is a professional association focused on technical communication. We hold an annual conference, publish peer-reviewed research, and run grants and awards programs. Our community includes students, faculty, and working professionals.

Our name stands for the Association for Computing Machinery’s (ACM) Special Interest Group (SIG) on the Design of Communication (DOC). So in addition to being our own professional association, we’re also part of a larger computer science community in ACM alongside groups like SIGCHI (computer-human interaction) and SIGAI (artificial intelligence). This association with ACM helps us give technical communication more visibility and a seat in broader discussions about how technologies are developed and used.

What can we expect at this year’s SIGDOC?

SIGDOC 2026 will be October 23-24 at Metropolitan State University in St. Paul, Minnesota. The conference program is full of great work on a range of topics such as SEO and AI, developing video-based technical communication, rhetorical UX for climate action, crisis communication, content strategy and style guides, visual health communication, and nonprofit content strategy, among many other things. We also have hands-on workshops, presentations from our Career Advancement Research Grant and Design Justice Grant recipients, and an Ignite Talk where local organizations will discuss their communications strategies. The Ignite Talk is on October 23 at 5:30 pm. It’s open to everyone to attend with no registration required.

A highlight each year is our Student Research Competition. As an organization, we strive to support people throughout their careers. The competition supports both undergraduate and graduate students in technical communication and associated fields. They initially present their work in front of judges at a large poster presentation, then the finalists at each level go to full presentations in front of the entire conference on the second day. We offer travel grants to help students attend, and the winners get additional prizes, as well as the opportunity to later present their work to all of ACM. We love the competition as a means to center students and to offer them high-profile opportunities for professionalization.

Finally, Saturday’s keynote features Natasha Jones, this year’s Rigo Award recipient for lifetime contributions to the design of communication. Jones’s work on Black technical and professional communication examines how texts and technologies shape the lived experiences of Black and marginalized communities. It has been central to the broader social justice turn in technical communication scholarship.

Who usually attends SIGDOC?

There’s a diverse group of attendees: professors, students, researchers, writers, information architects, trainers, managers, content strategists, UX designers, and beyond. It’s an intimate conference with around 150-200 people per year, so it’s a great place to really get to know other people. We keep going to the conference year after year because of the productive conversations and collaborations that we’ve found there.

The SIGDOC conference is open to anyone interested in technical communication and related disciplines. Registration is open to both members and non-members. With that said, members get significantly reduced registration rates.

You can also join SIGDOC without joining ACM more broadly. We like to think that membership in SIGDOC is a pretty good deal. It only costs $45 per year for professional members and $25 for students. For professionals, the conference registration discount is larger than the membership fee. Membership also gives you access to our online workshops throughout the year, and it lets you apply for our grants or awards. We work to keep membership cost-effective while offering a lot of value.

Whether you’re a working writer, a student, or a researcher, we’d love to see you in St. Paul this fall!

Thanks to everyone at SIGDOC for sharing a preview of this year’s SIGDOC conference. I’m looking forward to attending, and I’ll definitely see you there!

You can register for SIGDOC 2026 on the conference website. To get the member rate, be sure to join SIGDOC or ACM before starting your registration.