1 Introduction to Technical Communication

The Challenges of Producing Technical Communication

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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 asks if you’re aware that, next year, SEM manufacturers are expected to release products with improved signal-detection functions. She thinks, therefore, that the team might want to wait until those new models are released. 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 about these kinds of complications, to think through them, 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 (of vision, hearing, movement, or cognitive ability) who have needs you want to meet?
Purpose-related factors. Before you can write, you need to determine your purpose: what do 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. These specialists publicize new products and initiatives and respond to new developments and incidents. They also oversee all of the organization’s documents—from tweets to blog posts to Facebook fan pages and company-sponsored discussion boards.
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 writing a set of instructions for installing a water heater and you want those instructions to be easily understood by people who speak only Spanish, you will need more time and a bigger budget to have the document translated, and it will be longer and thus a little bit harder to use, for both English and Spanish speakers. You might need to save money by using smaller type, smaller pages, and cheaper paper, and you might not be able to afford to print it in full color. In technical communication, you do the best you can with your resources of time, information, and money. The more carefully you think through your options, the better able you will be to use your resources wisely and make a document that will get the job done.