I agreed to be interviewed by a student in a technical communication course, and here are my answers to her:
What is technical communication, in your own words?
It's the job of transferring knowledge, offering instruction, and building understanding of technical subjects in those who need it. Often it takes the form of Help, manuals, references, articles, and training materials. Its media can be written, visual, auditory, or animated. To serve the greatest number of people, technical communication should follow universal design, which means the media should be usable by both young and old, foreigners and non-native English speakers, the handicapped and impaired. Its value is measured in how well it meets the needs of the audience being served.
What are some of the characteristics of your job?
My job divides my time among meetings, communication (email, instant messaging, forums), research, and writing. There's a tremendous amount of self-teaching in this job: since I work with very technical people, I strive to teach myself as much as I can before interrupting any of them to help me. It's a job that can be done by telecommuting, if the organization has virtualized all of its resources and has adopted virtual communication tools (for web conferencing, group chat, threaded conversations), which are consistently used by all the teams.
What might distinguish it from other forms of communication? Why even is it important?
Technical communication differs from creative writing in that it's all about the user being served and nothing about personal expression: my writing shouldn't be noticeably "mine", distinctive in tone and style, to impress people. Good technical writing, if anything, tries to be invisible (not make you notice it). Technical communication differs from business writing in that it's all about serving a knowledge transfer goal, a learning goal in a user, rather than meeting a business objective (which requires writing for persuasion, authority, etc., to get people to do/believe things that benefit your organization). Technical writing focuses on the truth of the subject matter, and it has higher ethical standards, especially when it involves science and health/safety issues. It's public service, not art or salesmanship. It's more about being an effective teacher than an expressive author.
What tools and skills are needed to produce it?
The writing side of technical communication requires training in proofreading, editing, composition, rhetoric, and (preferably) journalism; being already strongly talented in verbal communication is very helpful, because a technical writer needs the writing part to be quick and easy, since so much energy is required to handle the technical content. The common tools specific to software documentation are listed here: http://hat-matrix.com/tools_list/. However, documentation is increasingly moving to web, wiki, and CMS environments, so it's good to get comfortable with those: http://www.cmswire.com/cms/products/
The visual side of technical communication is helped by training in graphic design, illustration, digital publishing, typography, interactive design, web design, animation and modeling, imaging and video. Adobe products are typical of the type of tools you'd need to master.
In addition, most jobs require mastery of Microsoft Office products, as tech writers are considered resources for word processing and layout assistance throughout most organizations.
How do you like your job? Do you enjoy it?
I love my job because I have a lot of freedom to create solutions to information problems I see. I get to write and rewrite (which I love), I get to design, I get to help folks who are less technical than me, and I get to learn new things endlessly. It's a good fit. :-)
