11 Skills of a Good Technical Writer

What makes a good tech writer? This profession only seems easy and straightforward. There are many hidden rocks in being a technical writer, and, as for being a good one - there’s even more.
As a company that has a lot of experience of working with technical writers because we create software for technical documentation, we decided to create this list.

Transcript

1. 11 Skills of a Good Technical Writer
2. Online Documentation Platform Brought to you by
3. Best Help Authoring Tool For Web Application Vendors What makes a good tech writer? This profession only seems easy and straightforward. There are many hidden rocks in being a technical writer, and, as for being a good one - there’s even more. As a company that has a lot of experience of working with technical writers because we create software for technical documentation, we decided to create this presentation for you.
4. #1 Writing skills First and foremost, techwriters are supposed to excel at writing itself. As the main criteria of good software documentation is the clarity of text, this can only be achieved by someone who knows how to write and put the most difficult ideas into simple words. All this sounds like some kind of a talent a person either possesses or not. But, in reality, it all comes down to hard work and practice. Read quality texts more, analyze the word choice there, figure out text structures - you will be well under way to improving your writing skill. Or, you can also try attending training sessions on the subject. Best Help Authoring Tool For Web Application Vendors
5. #2 Ability to Work with Technical Writing Tools Technical writing tools are designed specially for technical writing and they offer very task-specific functionality alongside with just being a user-friendly text editor. As a rule, such tools - feature workflows developed for tech writer teams; - support popular tech writing formats like Word, PDF, CHM, etc.; - Single-Sourcing saves a lot of time and effort for a documentation team. A good tech writer needs to be aware of what’s offered on the market. Ideally, they should try out a couple of tools to know how things work and figure out what appeals to them personally. Best Help Authoring Tool For Web Application Vendors
6. #3 Research and exploration skills These skills may concern any tech writer, but, it, probably, affects outsourcers the most. Working in an outsourcing company means that you have to deal with a variety of client companies you‘ve never heard of and are unaware of their products. Writing software documentation under such circumstances is a tough call. Only after hours of thorough research you can gather enough information on the given field to start with the writing process. Besides, doing some research is always great even for the area you feel pretty confident about. Remember, we live in the constantly changing world. So, here’s to double-checking! Best Help Authoring Tool For Web Application Vendors
7. #4 Being Systematic Software documentation is a system. Poorly structured documentation, first of all, ruins UX as it fails to fulfill its main function - provide with easily attainable data. Secondly, documentation writers suffer, as well. When there’s no system it is really hard to maintain the user guide further. So, a good technical writer is the one who always plans the documentation structure in advance and never makes a mess hoping to clean it up later. Best Help Authoring Tool For Web Application Vendors
8. #5 Teamwork A technical documentation team is part of a bigger mechanism. They should communicate with other departments. But also techwriters need to talk to each other, to the editors, designers and developers. At the first glance, technical writing seems to be the work cut out for introverts, but this appearance is deceitful. Don't forget about all the conferences made by and for technical communicators! The thing is - a user guide can only be clear and make sense when its author knows how everything works. So, there’s always lot of communication and inquiries about all sorts of things. Best Help Authoring Tool For Web Application Vendors
9. #6 Being Good at Single-Sourcing Single-Sourcing is a time saver for any tech writer. If you want to get more things done without additional effort, you should learn these techniques. Basically, Single-Sourcing allows creating multiple documents using one and the same source. For example, there’s a task to create a pro and a beginner versions of a user guide. With Single-Sourcing, you can create just one document, mark the parts meant for pros only and get two different documents as outputs. Another solution - the usage of variables in your documentation project. You can create a variable (a kind of a container for keeping some data) with the product version. This way you’ll be able to change the version in your documentation by just changing the variable value. Best Help Authoring Tool For Web Application Vendors
10. #7 Sociology Understanding the basics of sociology is a quite useful tech communicator skill. Technical documentation is created for users of some product or service. Any of it has its core user base and target audience. So tech writers should figure out who are the end users and only then start writing. For example, the difference between B2C and B2B user guides. In the first case, the explanations must be really simple and somewhat down to earth. While, in the second case, the content is supposed to be more complex and detailed. Sociology in terms of documentation authoring is knowing how the readers think and getting the best way of delivering the content for them. Best Help Authoring Tool For Web Application Vendors
11. #8 Critical thinking Critical thinking is one the most needed skills for a tech writer. Basically, it is the ability to make reasoned and clear judgments. This concept includes gathering information, analyzing and systematizing it. Just being systematic is only a small piece of the whole critical thinking story. What makes a good critical thinker? Only personal experience. The more conscious the whole process of getting and processing information is, the clearer the output will be. Best Help Authoring Tool For Web Application Vendors
12. #9 Web Design Basics This skill is optional. But, recent years show that writing in Notepad is not enough anymore. More and more online documentation tools appear on the market. Some of them offer ready templates that you can you as is or tweak them to your liking. And, the tweaking can also be done using HTML and CSS. Even if we look from the UX point of view - design can either improve or ruin UX - bad-looking color schemes, ugly screenshots… Users won't be satisfied with this, for sure. Best Help Authoring Tool For Web Application Vendors
13. #10 Education So, does a tech writer need a special diploma? It depends. Of course, it is somehow easier to become a tech writer than a front-end developer without one. In most cases, you don't need a degree for technical writing. But, still, many employers have certain expectations. Here are the most appreciated bachelor degrees for a technical writer: • Journalism • English • Communications • Computer science • Engineering Best Help Authoring Tool For Web Application Vendors
14. #11 Common Sense Another ‘must have’ for a tech communicator. And, for any human being for that matter. Your common sense will help you see when you are doing the right thing. Like, how many screenshots will be enough to explain this topic on rocket science. If your common sense is telling you that no screenshots are needed for rocket science, than I’ve got bad news for you ;) Reality checks help restore common sense greatly. Don't be too self-assured too often - go ask around and listen to people’s opinions. Best Help Authoring Tool For Web Application Vendors
15. Conclusion The list of skills that can be useful for any tech writer is now complete. This doesn’t mean, of course, that a technical writer has to be all of these things, no. But, in tech writing, like in any other professional field, there’s always an opportunity to grow as a specialist. Best Help Authoring Tool For Web Application Vendors
16. Thanks for watching! Provided to you by ClickHelp.co - best online documentation tool for SaaS vendors. https://twitter.com/ClickHelpNews https://medium.com/@clickhelp http://www.linkedin.com/in/clickhelpsupport Best Help Authoring Tool For Web Application Vendors