Shape up or ship out… Let's talk about Technical Writing

Today, let’s talk about technical documentation and what a good tech writer’s daily bread should be. As a tech writer, you have to bridge two worlds; the world of the client, who wants to write down everything to promote their own business and brand, and the world of the customer, who wants everything described in the simplest way possible. How can you deal with this approach? Where are the boundaries?

As a tech writer, I want to share some advice that can help you improve your writing so that when you ask a customer: "Have you read our guide?", you don't get the "TLDR" answer.

Understand the client's needs

The most important thing is to understand what the client actually wants. For some, the most important thing is the amount of documentation; for others, it is  quality in small quantities. One client may target regular customers, another wants exponential growth of the number of new clients.

My advice:

• Meet the employees who are creating the product and find out their vision and goals
• Study any available feedback
• Use analytical tools that can tell you how users behave on your site, what they look for, how long they spend on each page, etc. All this information can help you understand your customers’ mindset

Put yourself in your customer’s shoes

Sometimes it can be very complicated, but try to think like a customer and go through your own guide step-by-step. You'll see that some things may not be as easy to understand as you might have thought. Pay attention to each word and stick to the same phrases and naming conventions the whole time.

Sometimes it's very helpful to ask a friend in the industry or an experienced consultant to see problems that might be eluding you.

Take your time in the testing part

If you're working on a more complex technical guide that describes setup step by step, consider adding a "test it out" section. That way, you can show how everything works and that you are able to do the setup and commissioning yourself. This can help customers a lot, especially if you show the testing on video, for example.

Simplify the language

Your guides can be read by customers all over the world. Keep this in mind when you're choosing complex phrases or long sentences. can “spiceup” your text,  makes it more familiar,  more readable, but at the end of the day, in tech writing, the simpler the better. ()