Last night Alan Porter explained to STC Austin "Why Tech Writers Shouldn't Be Writers". Much of it focused on the use of comics for technical communication, but not comics in the sense of "humorous drawings" -- rather, comics as sequential images that tell a story. Most tech writers are painfully aware that their users would rather have a few annotated screenshots than written descriptions and procedures, but that's not a problem so much as a brain-based reality, he argues. Alan pointed out:
- Visuals fall short only of hands-on experience in achieving knowledge retention (~40% versus 60%, respectively).
- The #2 de facto search engine behind Google is YouTube, which is filled with amazing numbers of how-to instructional demos.
- The military's most successful technical manuals (which now serve a majority non-native English speaking audience) are comic-based.
- The CIA has found comics to be the most persuasive means of communication with foreign populations.
- Comic book reading is highly correlated with academic success, and most are written at a college reading level.
- The U.S. is abnormally prone to text-based signage and communication, compared to the rest of the world.
So, he argues, tech writers would do well to approach their communications tasks from a far more creative standpoint, as designing experiences to reach, motivate, persuade, and help their users, in whatever way works. Even if they aren't the ones to draw the helpful diagrams or shoot the demos, they're very much needed to decompose the tasks and to storyboard (script) the materials needed. His must-read list of books for understanding our new role include these wide-ranging titles (which I'll offer visually!):
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