Again, what is technical writing?

You must be using the F1 button–in software–to understand a product feature or get some product help, you know who develops it? A technical writer. Although, I understand that now-a-days you use Google search instead of the F1 button in your software, but again, Google directs you to a professional technical blog/forum (like www.msdn.com) which is written and maintained by technical writers.

Technical writing is a form of technical communication. It is a method of researching and creating information about technical processes and products. A technical writer produces information keeping in mind the intended audience (Programmer, Business analyst, Administrator, or a Business manager).

What does a technical writer produce? Mostly, technical writes work on hi-tech products and produce the online help, user manuals, white papers, industrial videos, reference cards, journal articles, patents, training material, marketing brochures, business papers, and technical reports.

Technical writing process is very similar to a software development process. To get the best documentation for an enterprise application, a technical writer produces a document using the following process:

1.  Documentation requirement and audience analysis – Understands what is required from a project and who is going to read the final documentation.
2.  Documentation design – Decides on the documentation format for the identified audience and the required media tools for developing the technical content.
3.  Documentation impact study – Reads and comprehends feature proposals, functional specification, and design specification documents, and then decides on the content that needs to be produced afresh and the existing content that needs revision.
4. Product feature run – Before documenting any product feature, a technical writer tests the functionality on the product.
5. Writing and Editing – Develops and edits the required technical content.
6. Review cycle – Sends the final output for review to SMEs (Subject Matter Experts), and other project stakeholders, and then, fixes the review comments that he gets from the reviewers.
7. Shipping – Uploads the final documentation as a plug-in in a software product or as a post on the Intranet/Internet.

In general, a technical writer’s core activities involve:

• Product/feature documentation
• Language edits
• Media and communications
• Feature testing

If you want to talk and get free consulting on technical writing, contact me (the author of www.gpod.in) or say hello to youtextme@gmail.com| @girishmahadevan | Facebook.