We’ve all read their work, so what is a technical writer?
Primer on Technical Writing
What is a technical writer anyways?
Technical Writing, sometimes called UX Writers, Content Designers, and Technical Authors, are writers who explain things to a specific audience with a specific goal. The writers use technical language to explain a set of procedures to their audience. The goal for a technical writer is usually to inform and instruct. Technical writing is usually associated with instruction manuals, however that association is changing as software services are recruiting more trained professionals.
Technical communication is important for many industries and helps people do their jobs. For example, an auto mechanic will refer to a manual when trouble shooting engine problems. Software developers will consult the documentation as they hook their application up to an API. Both people rely on the technical writer to be specific and accurate in their writing to make their jobs easier. You wouldn’t want your car back with an even bigger problem because the documentation called for the wrong full and you wouldn’t want your app to break because the API was called incorrectly. Because of this, the technical writer’s work is important.
In other words, the role of the technical writer is to have solve a problem for a specific audience. In order to do that, the writer must collaborate with people who know how to solve that problem. In many cases, the technical writer will sit down with the people who worked on the project and extract all the important information they can from the experts.
Once that information is thoroughly explained and written down, the technical writer will go to work. What they come up with takes many drafts, revisions, and sign off from project managers and the like. It is in this space that the technical writer needs to be explicitly clear, vague enough to apply to as many purposes as possible, and accurate. This is a skill that takes refinement and a special type of person.
If a writer is too narrow in their explanation or guide then the intended audience may never find what they are looking for. If the writer generalizes their documents then the audience may not get what they need out of the documentation.
Stating the purpose of the document and explicitly finding solutions to problems is the best way for writers to write the most useful documentation for the most amount of people.
Documentation is often the front line of defense against easily searchable questions. Rather than using up resource by calling the support team over the phone, a writer can have a FAQ page ready to go. This has been shown to save time and money for business. Technical Writers help reduce friction between customers who are faced with a problem and the software they are using.
The technical writing field is projected to grow by 8% in the next 10 years and I can only imagine the direction it is heading. If you would like to learn more or get into some of the communities around technical writing, I have an article you can read here.