Technical Communication
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- Why technical communication?
- The origin of technical communication is in improving the user experience. By enlisting the skills of professional writers in the creation of business and consumer user documentation, companies provided resources so customers could make full use of features and solving problems—rather than struggling with highly technical, function- versus task-oriented, user documentation.
- Today’s technical communicators are now contributing directly to product user interfaces, creating user assistance in the form of user interface text, online help, wizards, tooltips, and performance support applications.
- What is technical communication?
- Technical communication is the transfer of specialized or technical information from experts to non-specialists who use it. It requires research by a writer skilled in learning new subjects and writing for nontechnical audiences, followed by planning, drafting, and revisions. Many technical communication deliverables are online, requiring knowledge of specialized authoring tools to produce files that integrate into the product.
- Writing content databases from which to assemble different types of information products—a process called single-sourcing—enables reusable content and reduces work for product updates and different versions.
- What does it take?
- Technical communication experts—with formal training and experience creating product documentation.
- Access—Technical communicators should be on the product team from the beginning, helping to write personas, task inventories, use cases, and providing the assistance that enables users to optimize their use of the product’s functions.