Journal

news and resources for technical writing, information design and brand promotion

Posts by Sohail

1. How to provide a best user experience of a mobile app

   May 21, 2012. One comment.

   Smart phones have made the cellular experience more fun filled for the users and the credit goes to the applications for smart phones that have made the lives of the users much easier. Mobile application development market is on boom and a number of apps are introduced each day, how to make your application stand out depends totally on the user experience it is providing. As a simple rule of thumb don’t forget the easier the learning experience of the users the higher the ranking of the app would be. Follow the following set of tips to get a user friendly application designed:

   • Try and conduct a user survey on your idea so that you can have some functional requirements in front of you before you proceed further. These functional requirements will define what functionality to expect from the mobile application.
   • Next define the non-functional requirements clearly. This includes the performance of the application (speed, precision and capacity etc.) and technological support needed for the application in terms of software and hardware and communication interface needed for the application. Trust me! Lay out your plan and you can do wonders. 
   • It is always wise to draw the follow of your application on paper and then on computer even before opening Photoshop or any other text editor that you are using. There are a number of free tools available online which can help like Google Drawings. Remember! the disturbed flow of application annoys the users, so at this stage make sure every single click makes sense.
   • Never complicate the application by inducing various ideas in one. You can always develop a new application for a new idea.
   • While making the actual application makes sure the user interface is interactive and simple. There are certain guidelines stated by Android and iOS don’t forget to follow them.
   • Test-run the application and try to remove the bugs on the spot. Also trail run the application on various users’ cell phones and record the reactions. Incorporate the feedback given by the users before the launch, to make sure application does not lapse any major functionality. 

   One of the applications that I thoroughly enjoy because of its UX is LinkedIn app for android. Those who have seen and used it know well how interactive and user friendly it is. However recently I got to use Pin Share for Blackberry, the application is weird in terms of its UX, it is slow and would get stuck up a number of times. The look and feel and fonts everything somehow irritated me to bits. Try some of the applications and share your experience, it is always good to learn.

   

    

2. It’s not Sales – its Business Development!

   May 15, 2012. No comments.

   Time has seen new developments taking place not only in the educational front and jobs market but also in careers. Sticking to one kind of job exposure will not do any good. In this era, to stay at the top of the game, one has to prove their worth in more than one domain. This is what I was told when I was introduced to the new area of Business Development.

   

   business development

   Business Development is rather a new terminology but gives a diverse working experience. Lately the sales executives were responsible for bringing in numbers, marketing executives were to introduce new marketing campaigns, product developers had their defined responsibilities, accounts and legal department were to look after the after-sales and legal matters respectively. Today put all these job responsibilities in a blender and you get a perfect blend in the form of a Business Developer. A lot of young graduates would think, business developers are jack of all trades, I must agree, yes! They are and in a good sense. Business development is a high potential and growth career which offers a lot of learning and responsibility instead of keeping the prospect to a dull monotonous job.

   What makes business development more exciting is the exposure one can gain by bringing in more clients as the key account person, understanding the client’s needs and offering the right product, developing a perfect marketing message to bring in more clients and consequently numbers. It also asks for the candidate to have the financial and budgeting exposure in addition to having some legal knowledge, as these people are also responsible for developing legal papers like NDAs and MOUs etc.

   Business Development is the perfect job an MBA can dream of; all it needs is energy and passion to succeed. When I mixed and matched my MBA majors (marketing and finance) people would ask, where do you want to land? Didn’t know there is one domain particularly made for people like me who have guts to challenge themselves. Take my word if you are a BD person you can take on anything that pleases you, make your own marketing campaign, make your pitch, bring in numbers, make your budget, get discounts, make legal papers and develop all type of collateral, where will you get more exposure then this?

   

    

3. acquiring talent from social media tools

   July 15, 2011. 2 comments.

   Few questions before we talk about our topic in detail. Are you keeping up with Social media for your recruitments? Are you already engaged with clients and followers using the social media? Are you an HR executive or human resources professional and wondering just what is social media and how can social media support your business agenda ?

   People are central to social media and its success. Social connections and interactions make an obvious difference in promoting any business and capturing the market more easily on a large scale. Many successful HR consultants are pretty evangelistic about using this tool as it offers looking beyond the organization to find new talent.

   “Social media can give you a great and efficient way to engage with your community – candidates, clients, customers, partners, prospects, etc. – on a very level playing field with the companies you are competing with for talent (or business).” says Chris Havrilla national recruiting manager Hitachi Consulting, a global leader in delivering business and IT strategies.

   An HR can be efficient enough to make its organization stand out in hiring people that are diligent. Social media increases the visibility among jobseekers that enables the HR personnel to communicate about their company culture and the many benefits that are offered to the employees.

   

   It invites a pool of talented and potential jobseekers which we may not find the other way. Business and organizations that recruit successfully through Social media use this space to interact with users on a personal level. Hiring through social media also gives potential employers unique insight into the candidate’s true character that is not likely to be revealed during the conventional interview process.

   According to the latest research by the ACHIEVE Group, 10% of respondents surveyed in the Recruitment through Social Media Report 2011 have used social networking sites to hire staff. The results of this report have indeed showcased a novel and fascinating trend emerging, as more and more companies begin using social media as a recruitment tool.

   Recruiting through social media is gaining momentum and it will emerge as most hyped trend. So are you geared up for Social Media Recruiting?

   By Fatima Ahmed.

   

    

4. Casting a consumer magic

   April 13, 2011. No comments.

   Many of us wonder how brands are coming up with so creative marketing campaigns – making their target audience jump from the seat and get in action. We can see some top advertising trends  being done in 2010 with a lot of innovation involved. So what is it that really sets fire in a marketing campaign and at same time, everyone gets some benefit out of it. campaigns become powerful when designed on better user experience.

   I won’t bind user experience with just software or cool Apple devices, but with anything that lets everyone make most of anything a business owner has to offer its consumers. So back to campaigns, QR codes are a new way into engage user and get online and offline experiences. As a matter of fact, they offer even more on both consumer and business ends. Smart marketers make sure they put in some nice piece of information when a user scans the QR code from mobile. Better experiences don’t just related to scanning codes but a powerful campaign would involve leveraging all platforms in a synchronized way – traditional as well as new digital mediums. A welcome Facebook page offers some discounts, group discounts or local deals websites, collaborative offers, promo videos on YouTube and what not :).

   Here the first implementation of QR codes is a public awareness message. Like, a QR code with few instructions and how to scan – I recommend using BeeTag and Kaywa; as they support most of the mobile phones with camera. Seems like a hassle doesn’t it? Going through the download of a reader from native app stores is a single exercise making the next moves smooth and easy. Once this public campaign gets a good footprint, the job is done for many businesses. Then you go posting QR codes on store windows, street lamps, magazines, flyers, coupons, event tickets and where not. It’s easy said than done. As discussed earlier, a marketing campaign today needs to be coherent. Let’s play QR codes!

   

    

   

    

5. Microsoft Tags for Mobile Marketing

   March 22, 2011. No comments.

   

   Learn More about Mobile Tagging at Microsoft Tag.

   

    

6. How to Personify your Brand

   March 8, 2011. No comments.

   A common thing that all unsuccessful brands lack is – persona. Any selling entity whether a person, group, product or service should discover its persona and bring it to the limelight. So speaking for businesses, a persona becomes the foundation and drives the way they’re presented.

   You cannot present a brand as only a tagline, product or a logo. Brand is a Relationship. A brand:

   • Connects businesses and customers through a rich emotional relationship and experience.
   • Delivers the sense of relevance to customers about your identity and services.

   

   “Whether you are a Mac person or a PC person, even the briefest exposure to the Apple logo may make you behave more creatively, according to recent research from Duke University”

   Let’s shape up your brand persona in step-by-step approach: 

   1. Create a point of view. You need to have a strong identity. Who, what and why are questions to ask yourself about your business.
   2. Be passionate and obsessive. Whatever you’re going to present to customers – be very mean about it. After all, it’s all about creating an impression and inspiration.
   3. Know your targets. Getting to know the audience of your brand is really very important. Actions packed games are just right for teens and so are golf club promotions for the elder lot. No discrimination here; just being specific.
   4. Consistency in the brand. Different logos on each marketing communication (web or print) can be a setback when consumers would be judging on same good quality in your business solutions.
   5. Delivering a unique experience. Brand persons bring a differentiating experience.  Same two businesses can represent themselves in totally different way with USP (Unique Selling Points).
   6. Connecting and collaborating. “I’ve never been particularly good at numbers, but I think I’ve done a reasonable job with feelings. I’m convinced that it is feelings, and feelings alone, that account for the success of the Virgin brand and all its myriad forms.” -Richard Branson.

   

    

7. selling solutions – not boxes

   February 9, 2011. One comment.

   I happened to be at a furnishing store and checked out new furniture designs. Initially, I felt lost in picking out some nice trendy designs. I was looking at various aspects like design, size, wood, portability, durability and lot more. And then out of nowhere comes the salesman with a worn out catalog. Nothing really seemed appealing to my perfectionist eyes since spending this lot of money needs justification :). While I flipped pages over and over looking for an optimum solution, the lightning struck – my personalized bed. I was precisely looking for a customized solution and not a boxed product.

   Likewise, we can relate such customized solutions to open ended business services. Services turned solutions are the way consumers / clients are expecting from businesses. Merging a couple of features from different samples, I got a design matching  the interior theme at my home while also gratifying the aesthetics sense.  I could’ve even ask for embossing my name on each piece, but let’s just keep it here. Similarly, we keep ourselves in the paradigm of successful product selling rather considering the customer experience in mind. Even then, companies hardly pay attention to the end user experience of the boxes sold out. The customer experience remains ignored while dynamic businesses keep bringing better services turned business solutions to their customers.

   Implying expertise and skills in a unique market or improving user experience in particular business domain is what is the trend now and we can see so many companies imparting this concept.  The ultimate focus now remains to optimize the end user experience. In our area of expertise, the faith lies in understanding the pain points of customer to bring quality, retention and satisfaction – resulting in a partner program initiative. Proper requirement gathering, analysis and elicitation eventually lead to closely matching what customer wants. In my case above, the most amazing furnishing experience at home.

   New trends are pushing companies to be more engaged with customer to get feedback on user experience. Crowd-sourcing, real-time collaboration and social media engagement platforms are bringing more customer-centric solutions to our agendas while being the most trusted partner of our customers.

   

    

8. social media branding – your strategy

   December 21, 2010. No comments.

   I notice businesses adapting social media not just for having an online presence but also for promoting their brands. Social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, foursquare etc.) help bridge the gap more cost effectively – and above all support the crowd sourcing idea.

   While managing the brands on these platforms is pretty interesting but require some careful steps to keep the promotion stone rolling. So let’s look at some handy tips for defining your social media strategy:

   • Maintain a proactive presence. Keep a list of on-going to-do’s for each social media platform along with open requests for new tasks. Reactive behavior will pile up tasks on table and create a mess where you keep looking at the scattered post-its on your desktop.
   • Become a program manager. It’s tough to keep track of all activities but a stitch in time saves nine. Work on all your strategy tools – project charts, business models, analysis, resources and time management – you definitely need to work on these multiple areas for a streamlined social media strategy.
   • Train your human resources. A well educated team can save a lot of effort and time to boost your brand across all social media platforms. Tip – publish social media guidelines across the company.
   • Succeed with organization. For an organized strategy – define your governance policy, roll out processes/procedures and finally broadcast a training program.

   

   • Become a Facilitator. Controlling multiple reins is tough so let each business unit manage its horse (social media unit). Help and train the units while acting as internal social media consultant.
   • Implement  social media plans. Actions speak louder than words – so a good strategy is to setup communities, campaign management systems and social  media CRM’s. This helps establishing channels to communicate with customers keeping the community and organization grow in parallel.
   • Expand your branding. Now marketing isn’t sufficient anymore so improve the customer experience with better reach, engagement, experience and service in real time. And the world is yours !

   
   

   

    

9. Questions of an Editor

   November 6, 2010. No comments.

   At one point we all agree that writing is still a complex process. Don’t agree? Well it requires doing necessary research, analyzing audience and paying so much attention to the document structure (images, steps, indexes, page setup etc.). So a writer can get distracted.

   Editing plays a role here as an opportunity – allowing writer to emphasis on the quality of both writing and presentation. So its like pulling away from research and writing towards better user understanding,  meeting expectations and content quality. Though Editing comes at the end and right before handing over the project. Let’s look at Editorial types (and questions asked) that an editor would look into a document:

   • Suitability for audience and purpose – Does this document respond adequately to the task assigned?
   • Completeness and Accuracy – Are all the required parts included? Is the content accurate and adequately developed for the intended audience? Do the content and discussion of it respect ethics?
   • Organization and consistency – Does the sequence of information reveal the relationship of ideas? Are related parts treated in consistent ways?
   • Visual design and usability – Will page or screen layout, illustrations, and searching devices (table of contents, headings, menu) help readers find what they need? Does the visual design enhance interpretation of content?
   • Style – Do sentence structures and word choices clarify meaning? Is the tone right for the audience?
   • Correctness of grammar, punctuation, and spelling; consistency – Do grammar, punctuation, and spelling conform to conventions? Are capitalization, use of numbers, dates, and abbreviations treated consistently?

   Reference  for Editorial Types: Technical Communication, Page 261, Second Edition, McGraw-Hill Higher Education

   

   
   

   

    

10. Being Creative in Writing Technically

    October 31, 2010. No comments.

    I was just thinking how journalism writing is done and what I need to consider. Just a simple thought

    crossed my mind that I should be able to read my article again with the same interest while not wishing

    to print and throw in the bin. With the similar objective, writers try best to be effective and clear, but

    the problem lays the same as if they are really communicating meaningful for their right audience.

    Considering the technical communication field, it has mostly been associated in the past with jargon

    based writing – in a form only understood by technical people and experts of a certain field. The

    information would be simply too accurate to comprehend by a layman. It makes sense to define and

    describe an activity or a process which is not based on an assumption. Likewise, a writer’s personal

    experience matters the most, which adds creativity and life in a piece of information.

    

    The technique of creative technical writing lies beyond being neutral and objective, whether a

    writer is very careful in choosing words or is being precise in writing clearly. To eliminate the need of

    interpretation or a dictionary to avoid confusion, some fields have developed a standard of key terms

    that translate some words more effectively and for the right audience. Here, a UK based organization

    – Plain Language Commission – is helping writers to use plain English language to develop content

    for web and print material. However; there is still some part of interpretation left to be done in some

    specific industries.

    

    So they resolve this by having specialized individuals who transform information in a language, which is more readable for people who work in the respective companies and organizations. The moment writers start defining and describing information in plain language, the reader’s job become easy and topics become approachable. What’s more, this reduces error and confusion while at the same time makes a user reach a goal more effectively and with efficiency. Again, writer should keep in mind that not always is any information is so meaningful to all types of audiences. However, a writer must always keep in mind the reader’s adaptability to comprehend the words. I’ll wind up with an example of definition, “light pen – A light-sensitive input device used to select an entry or indicate position” (Szymanski et al., 738). Now a teacher can work on this definition to make students understand in one go.

    Reference: Plain Language Commission

    

     

11. Apple’s user experience

    October 21, 2010. 2 comments.

    What counts for a good user experience? Is it the set of application features, interface or help content? All of them combined., Each compliments the other with the beauty of design, interaction and experience. Now poeple actually do relate some of the best user experiences with Apple. It made the user experience its top priority and not just for the customer or end user’s sake, but through personal experiences. Steve Jobs steers his boat of design concept towards his own consumer-wise satisfaction. Just consider it like the buzz of Disruptive Technology in terms of killer user experience.

    

    Information designers community is now more active and geared to providing quality content for User Education.  The way text, graphics, tables or any other content should be displayed, is becoming more appealing and interactive. Either the writer keeps it to just plain text or images or develops interactive videos, is all a game changing approach. Now what major vendor companies are doing – publishing their standards for publication – for developing content for their software or hardware. Apple , likewise Microsoft, has its own style guides for publishing. The objective is to help authors deliver information which is user-friendly for their respective interface environments. On top of it, there are some popular help authoring tools that are specifically targetted to develop user helps for Apple’s proprietary assets and supported applications.

    Here are some tools that I came across:

    • ReadCHM
    • CHMate

    And some mailing lists and recommended readings:

    • Apple Help Authoring Mailing List
    • An Introduction to Apple’s HTML-based Online Help System
    • Apple Human Interface Guidelines

    

     

12. Gaining reader’s attention

    October 12, 2010. No comments.

    Once at a crowded shoe store, a mother was constantly advising her 4 year old to “don’t touch it son” – “don’t do it” to keep him away from the window shelves, but he would still drop a shoe once in a while. Pretty amused at how directions are given and still unattended, this rushed in a feeling when we see writers keep signalling to the users with precautions in their manuals. A writer would test a product and write on it. Some are concerned to keep the users away from danger and loss, other’s don’t. I do!

    As technical communication moves two dimensional – users and topics – writers still keep a close eye to the user’s environment and behaviors. A close study on Wikipedia reveals some insights on this applied science of user behavioral analysis. In a broader prospective, it’s a common practice we tend to observe behavior of others and ourselves when interacting with an interface. Lot of people panic at ATM machines not knowing what to press or where to touch and keeping the machine occupied for several minutes. I would suggest putting few lines of instructions alongside for a novice. So as not to insert cash where one has to withdraw.

    Writers need to ensure that user is comfortable in understanding the normal instructions in a manual to those of the precautions – Notes, Tips, Warnings. Making a document stand out with handy tips does make a difference to a plain manual carrying feudalism. Useful notes let the user feel comfortable with less anxiety of using controls in a different way, as to just pressing in a wrong combination – like for a video game console. Some real case scenarios and examples are also a nice way to show how a process can be done in a certain way.

    Users are an indirect ROI to the manuals, which become an important part of any product selling.

    

     

13. Writing Technically

    October 11, 2010. No comments.

    Technical Writing is usually related to the IT profession. Strange! What if a person is writing Getting Started Guides for BMW Mini, a person writing Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for cargo handlers, or a person writing instructions for website visitors?

    Exploring the dashboard of your car would reveal a handy manual that is usually not given much attention. God knows the reasons and we (authors) intentionally don’t :). Automobile manufacturers have good intentions too to include a nice manual in your car’s accessories. Same goes for your washing machine, cellular phone, folded beds and a lot more things around you. All of these things come with brief or comprehensive guides. These are written by technical writers.

    Technical Writers work for various different industries ranging from pharmaceuticals to defense and software development to manufacturing. With the diversity in industry, the scope of technical writers’ work has expanded beyond just user manuals and online help. They create and manage wikis, blogs, video tutorials, illustrations, demos, training materials and a lot of other stuff.

    While industry and deliverables of technical writers are diverse, the basic principle of technical writing remains the same - analyzing audience and writing plain language to explain technical information to non-technical audience. However, the tools and techniques do vary. Technical Writers, today, use a number of techniques such as localization, single source authoring, collaborative writing etc. Imagine a French owner of an Audi reading online content written in French and tailored to the specific model and a German owner reading customized content in German and written specifically to the model that he owns. This asks for a lot of content development, customization and optimization – all done by technical writers and content managers.

    Convinced? The next time you struggle with your new vacuum cleaner, just pick up the manual that came with your machine and see how easily you can take out the dust bag, clean it, and then fix it back.

    

     

14. Audience Analysis

    September 21, 2010. 2 comments.

    “Welcome everyone to the exciting adventure of a whole new interface to create photo albums and share online with friends and family”. What is the first thing that should come to the reader’s mind? In my common sense of observation, the reader should acknowledge that this application is open for everyone. That’s what i believe :) People might think different. However, I would recommend a smart technical writer to grab this idea before just addressing every person in the town to teach how to run the generator. This does come with patience and craftiness when the writer begins to jot down the instructions before even realizing who is going to read the manual or say whatever the document is in his hands.

    What brings you more closer to your customers (here we say audience of the document), is how you understand them. A tutorial aimed at a highly experienced professional would be different, that person might not need to run through the concepts over and over again, already knows the domain well. So our job is to just make life of such people heaven by easy to follow steps for our software. Since every software is process driven based on certain business scenario, so we can write instructions that he can seamlessly follow and get the job done. Bingo! But it’s not so easier, the writer needs to dig a lot of information from SME’s and other project stake holders, as well as look for the customer information on web and analyze their behavior.

    At a point where I am frustrated to find the download link on a website, a unique and well presented button can make it easy for me to find. Similarly, a good manual for a mobile phone will help the user to locate the option to set the alarm then going through menus and finally cursing the manual writer. I hope, no writer would find it amusing while walking on the road and find its own written manual laying distorted on the street.

    Analyze your audience, as you mold your tone to talk to your friends, family, co-workers and strangers on the road.

    Happy Analyzing !

    

     

15. video vs. text

    May 12, 2010. No comments.

    “hey dad check out this cool video on how to jailbreak the iphone? i better try it as well going through each and every step as the guy does in this clip”. lol. but i’ll consider it a blackball on using for such purpose. however, there have been a lot of discussions over the web, including LinkedIn. you can check out this interesting post that i came across in a group on LinkedIn – http://bit.ly/9lo88Y.

    

     

16. looking at crib-sheets

    May 7, 2010. No comments.

    when we look at the web for further reading, crib sheets are also called cheat sheets. confused as why am i posting something that we could call unethical to documentation. don’t worry, i use them for making my user more handy in understanding what he is really up to.

    let’s explore more with clear definitions and explanation.

    crib sheet is a concise set of notes used for quick reference (Wikipedia). In my very recent experience, I started with crib sheets and while looking at the first sample, I could just do more than sit calmly in my seat. While I went through what was in front of me, it was a flow diagram to say in general but served the purpose of a handy reference to the precise links or options available to user and perform a single but complete business scenario. Most amazing feature of this crib sheet was, considering my understanding of the business itself, I knew in just few minutes as what are key links and steps that would lead me to get things done for business use case without going through any bible (user manual) of that software.

    So why not have crib sheets be a part of documentation kit for your software. Lets help a business user save time with just commands of enter, click and select the relevant areas and bingo! the task is done. Students reading this would have a different perspective but in a relative way, as keywords or short steps as guide for passing an exam or a test. But I don’t want any negative energy coming out from this article rather stay on the positivity island.

    You have all the liberty to use any tool or colors but making sure they are still not a manual but contain key strokes to perform a specific task while also visually appealing. I’ll just conclude here to keep our eyes open and try different ways to make our users/customers feel at ease in using your software or any product – here crib sheets for a change.

    

     

17. Developing documentation w/o a tech writer and creating a mess!

    February 12, 2010. No comments.

    Suppose you’re a manager and you pick a developer to write a user manual for the new product release. You won’t be surprised by the wide-eye and open-mouthed reaction as well as curses in the heart. Developers are a kind of resource pool with the least understanding of their end-user mindset compared to the product stakeholders and yes, the Technical Writers. Programming all day, handling code snippets, tackling database issues and responding to reported bugs is hell of a job and how do you imagine a developer could feel relax enough to do proper writing and making the user feel at peace.

    Technical writers have this tendency to play around the software, get to know the business, read through the minds of their audiences and then finally write plain and easy to understand instructions or any user content. It’s a lot important to learn what you’re writing than assuming it all to be good when you’re just jotting down the jargons of the technology being used for the software development. Why would the end-user bother which technology you’re using unless its a kind of documentation that he really is concerned but still it’s not well written. As I have worked in different IT companies, reading through the design documents and getting to know what they’re trying to say is a tough job. At one of the places where the company developed solutions for telecom industry, I laughed at my manager when he asked as how is the knowledge development going on and asked “Is this System Design document written in chinese or I am feeling dizzy?”. I’m not really trying to offend the development group, but that really creates the need of a technical writer to bridge the communication gap between the audience and document. A well written business proposal can boost enough leads converting into actual sales than a jargon filled document. Technical Writers grab the bigger picture and at same time the low level design patterns, which form the basis of a document, either technical or educational. Involved from initial design phase towards deployment, technical writers move along the phases of SDLC and develop documentation with intuitive user experience.

    It’s always a great idea to make your documents sound easy-to-read and compelling since everyone’s focus is on the customer experience than the developer’s.

    

     

18. tech the writing

    December 2, 2008. One comment.

    tech writers mostly develop the habit of living in an action packed world. do this and do that. it happens this when you do that. the product will spurt out flowers rather than a detailed report of your purchases; when you miss out specifying the actions properly and without a sequence.

    so, basically it is how you use verbs in instructing users, that is now a wide practice for writing user/help manuals. however, when digging in to highly technical documents, writers adopt an action strategy that is proposed for the target audience. consider this way, “system should be scalable to accommodate database entries up to 20 million” or “The actions package provides special adapters between the incoming HTTP request and the corresponding business logic” (Apache).

    emphasizing the key factors in a sentence or even a document is of vital importance to help the audience understand the purpose of reading a particular piece of information. with jittery phrases and confused statements consisting of perfect tenses will let user wonder if the information is obsolete and might not be the current scenario to follow through.

    thence “tech the writing” !!!

    

     

19. Technical Writers – First Thoughts

    November 5, 2008. No comments.

    Just when you install software on your system, do you even bother to read its user manual or set of instruction of how to use this product? I guess not every time. In our country, we do not bother to read any kind of help material before using a product whether it is an air conditioner or any computer application. However, in fact it should be a common practice to know something before you put your hands on it. This is where technical writers play their role in making a bridge between product users and the application developers.

    Now it is very important to recognize the vital role of a technical writer and services expected to provide to justify the requirements of this profession. Since technical writer is a sub category of technical communication, that involves other categories involved in documentation, like content writer, software configuration manager, technical editor, information designer and many more. In a broader sense, technical communicator tends to play a role of mother space ship incorporating several of its child space ships. Consider a software life cycle as example, it involves application documentation for requirements gathering, function specification, software design, installation guides, test plans, configuration management notes, user guides and many other documents. Keeping in view this broad spectrum of documentation involved in software development, a technical writer proves to be an important resource in bringing a quality software application by maintaining international development standards.

    A company should recognize their technical writer resources by maximum utilization of their knowledge, skills, and abilities. It is seen very often that a technical writer is working only on documenting the user manuals, installation guides and online help authoring. Practically, it also depends upon the background of a technical writer, who can have any qualification from English Literature to Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or any related academic field incorporating documentation process/phase in its curricula. Therefore, if a company requires more from its resource then it should give training to the technical writer to learn new methodologies and tools to meet the job requirements. However, a technical should also keep in mind that, s/he do adhere to this quote “Jack of all trades, master of none”.

    A technical writer (in short TW) in a beginning of career faces different challenges in gaining a reputation in company. It is better to have duties and responsibilities explained to the new resource so that there is no confusion among the employer and the employee regarding the work requirements. S/he can be assigned either to a team or to a project to develop required documents during its development life cycle. It is now up to a Technical writer to manage workload and make a handy schedule for meeting the deadlines. A time comes when a TW feels as a freeman. It happens so when there is not much work for the TW to do in office hours and most of the times seen reading books and browsing information on the internet, writing personal portfolios, or reviewing previous work. This thing is a pretty issue for company management and the employee as well which arises a question of proper resource usage, which I have discussed earlier in the article. A common sense is to make sure a resource is busy in learning new trends and technologies for the benefit of the company and itself.

    Now imagine what lies in the heart of a technical writer, a harsh truth of making money or loyalty to the noble profession of technical communication. This does strike me as well when I am returning home from my office. But in all, if you just remember that to make a living, you need to earn and to earn fame in your profession, you need sincere dedication to your work. I have experienced it in my short career but truthfully very handy advice for myself and all other fellow writers.

    A question, technical writer has in mind in start of the career is, “Where do you see yourself after a couple of years?” Now it all depends on personal interests and motivation of a TW. Think deeply, dig out your real goals to achieve your aims in life, find out your intention, to get money, fame, or scholastic achievements. When you are clear of your destination, and then map out plans for your career in technical writing. It’s very important that you be in full regards – stimulated to this profession. In the end if you find the work boring or monotonous, then consider another profession in technical communication. You can make for a top position only with an earnest dedication devotion to the field of your choice.

    P.S. My first article on technical writing written 3 years back with a fresh zeal. My personal statement for this article is “Ignorance is bliss” and dedicated to anyone claiming to be an encyclopedia. This article follows with recent experiences and critical analysis of this field.