The Challenges of Producing Technical Communication
Most people in the working world don’t look forward to producing technical communication. Why? Because it’s hard to do.
For instance, your supervisor has finally approved your request to buy a scanning-electron microscope (SEM) for your department and given you a budget for buying it. It would be nice if all you had to do now was list the important features you need in an SEM, read a couple of articles about SEMs, check off the ones that have those features, and then buy the best one that fits your budget.
Unfortunately, life is not that simple, and neither is technical communication. If it were, this book would be about a dozen pages long.
Technical communication is challenging, and not primarily because SEMs are complex devices, although they are. Technical communication is challenging because people are complicated, and collaborating with people is at the heart of the process.
As soon as you have decided you need an SEM that can detect signals for secondary electrons, for instance, someone on your team argues that you also need to detect signals for back-scattered electrons and characteristic X-rays. Someone else on the team disagrees, arguing that an SEM that detects those additional signals costs an additional $15,000, putting it beyond your budget, and that on those rare occasions when you need those functions you can send the samples out for analysis. Another team member suggests that you wait until next year, when SEM manufacturers are expected to release products with improved signal-detection functions. You realize that with the complications your colleagues have presented, you won’t be purchasing an SEM any time soon. You do more research, keeping their concerns in mind.
The good news is that there are ways to think through these kinds of complications that will help you communicate better. No matter what document you produce or contribute to, you need to begin by considering three sets of factors:
Audience-related factors. Does your audience know enough about your subject to understand a detailed discussion, or do you need to limit the scope, the amount of technical detail, or the type of graphics you use? Does your audience already have certain attitudes or expectations about your subject that you wish to reinforce or change? Will the ways in which your audience uses your document, or the physical environment in which they use it, affect how you write? Does your audience speak English well, or should you present the information in several languages? Does your audience share your cultural assumptions about such matters as the need to spell out details or how to organize the document, or do you need to adjust your writing style to match a different set of assumptions? Does your audience include people with disabilities who have needs you want to meet?
Purpose-related factors. Before you can write, you need to determine what you want your audience to know or believe or do after having read your document. Although much technical communication is intended to help people perform tasks, such as installing a portable hard drive for a computer, many organizations large and small devote significant communication resources to branding: creating an image that helps customers distinguish the company from competitors. Most companies now employ community specialists to coordinate the organization’s day-to-day online presence and its social-media campaigns.
Document-related factors. Does your budget limit the number of people you can enlist to help you or limit the size or shape of the document? Does your schedule limit how much information you can include in the document? Does your subject dictate what kind of document (such as a report or a blog post) you choose to write? Does the application call for a particular writing style or level of formality? (For the sake of convenience, I will use the word document throughout this book to refer to all forms of technical communication, from written documents to oral presentations and online forms, such as podcasts and wikis.)
Because all these factors interact in complicated ways, every technical document you create involves a compromise. If you are planning to make a video about installing a water heater and you want the video to be easily understood by people who speak only Spanish, you might decide to make two videos: one in English and one in Spanish.