What is technical communication?
Page 1 2
In the last few centuries, the growing influence of science on human civilisation has been remarkable. In the developed world, science, in the form of various technologies, permeates almost every aspect of daily life. We have become a society of technology users, but few of us need to understand the mathematics, physics, or chemistry that are the foundation of technical products and services. However, we do need a certain amount of information to make technology work for us. In medieval times, people acquired technical knowledge by serving apprenticeships alongside master craftspeople. In more recent times, society has found ways to disseminate technical information more widely and quickly. The most popular method is through documentation, usually printed but increasing in some online form.
In earlier times, the inventors and engineers who designed and manufactured the technical products also wrote the manuals. However, this approach had disadvantages. The inventors and engineers had less time to devote to developing new technologies. Also, although they might be able to communicate with their technical peers, they were not always talented at communicating ideas to people who had no technical background. This last issue became increasingly important as technology products became available to the general public. The solution was for engineers to leave the documentation to specialists in writing and illustration. These people are often called technical writers and technical illustrators. However these professions, and related ones, are often grouped under the broader term "technical communicators". Technical communicators work under a variety of job titles. For an explanation of why this should be, read "Something for the business card".
Bridging the knowledge divide
A technical communicator's job is to act as a representative for the people who will use a technical product. In most cases, a technical communicator works as member of the project team that develops a product. From this position, she can speak directly with the people who design and build it whereas the product's eventual users usually never have this opportunity. So the technical communicator must anticipate the users' questions and raise them with the engineers or programmers on the users' behalf. She must ask questions in the terms and jargon that engineers or programmers understand, but she must translate the technicians' replies into words or pictures that users can understand.
To act as an effectively bridge between these two groups of people, technical communicators need a mix of skills and knowledge. For example, a technical communicator might need:
- Knowledge of one or more technical areas
- The ability to express ideas clearly in words or pictures
- Knowledge of the various factors that affect how people search for, read, learn, and process information
- An understanding of the tools and processes needed to convert raw information into a useful publication
In the past, technical communicators always expressed ideas as printed words and diagrams. However, developments in IT have opened up new options. Information can be presented through hypertext, animation, video, and sound. So although technical communicators often still publish paper documentation, they also publish in other ways such as:
- Online documentation (including online help, Internet and internet sites, and Acrobat files)
- Interactive multimedia applications (computer-assisted training courses, for example)
- Knowledge databases
Page 1 (top of the page) 2
Copyright © 2003 Stephen P. Reynolds. All rights reserved.
|