Common mistakes Technical Writers commit

To err is human, to forgive is divine. The problem lies in the fact that users are also human and they are not used to forgiving – especially people like product designers, developers, and writers. This can be attributed to the variety of choice available to the users. They can happily switch to another product if a particular product fails in any aspect. A user might also be dissatisfied if the product is very good but lacks meaningful help information to use it comfortably.

Here is a list of some common mistakes that technical writers often commit. Instead of relating to the grammatical, syntactical and style mistakes associated with writing, this list focuses on the roles and responsibilities of a technical writer. It is broadly classified relating to the three major actors – subject matter experts, users, and writers – who play a significant role in the development of an effective Help system.

Mistakes with regard to subject matter experts

• Waiting to hear from the developers. Technical writers need to be proactive and try to gather information from the various subject matter experts. It is very fortunate if the software development process includes documentation as a significant part and there is a separate deadline for submitting the different drafts of documentation during the different stages of product development. Yet, it is the responsibility of the technical writer to step forward and fix an appointment with the Project Manager and seek permission to interact with the product designers and developers.
• Not planning the interaction with the developers. Technical writers and developers are often at loggerheads when a deadline is due and a new feature is added to the product. The developer has to complete the assignment within time and the technical writer has to gather as much information as possible within the short period of time. None of them can compromise on the quality of work that they do at this juncture.
• Looking at things from a singular point of view while interacting with the subject matter experts. You need to look at things from the developer’s view and the user’s view as you interact with the subject matter expert. This helps you get the different perspectives and gain complete knowledge.
• Approaching a subject matter expert without any preparation. Technical writers often fail to respect the paucity of time and other constraints that developers are associated with. It is very difficult for the developers or the design team members to explain in detail every trivial aspect that can otherwise be easily learned through one of the search engines. Hence, technical writers should walk the extra mile and do a little amount of research and preparation even before approaching the developer. Likewise, they should clearly absorb all the information available in the design document to get a hang of the product.
• Not asking enough questions. It is advisable to prepare a list of questions even before approaching the experts. This helps gain clarity about what one wants to gain from the interaction. Some interactions might last only for a few minutes and the writers need to collect the most important information. Hence, it helps having a list of questions. It is also good to send the list of questions prior to the meeting so that the developers are also ready with the answers.

Mistakes with regard to the User

• Having too much information that overwhelms the user or too less information that confuses the user. Writers tend to justify when they are unsure of what information to add and what not to add. Imagine yourself as the user. List the inputs that you want when you try the application for the first time and at later stages. This can help you arrive at the actual volume of information that neither overwhelms the user nor leaves him confused.
• Making assumptions about the audience and going ahead without any clarification. Draw a clear line between observations and assumptions. Inferences can be drawn only if the source of information is authentic. A senior and experienced project manager might give you some authentic information about the probable type of users of a new product. Likewise, an industry report about changing trends can also be a reliable source. More often, you are not sure of the audience. Instead of making assumptions, try to interact with the actual user to get some understanding. While this may be impossible mostly, you can infer about the audience after interacting with the developers and other key people involved in the product design.
• Ignoring the way users tend to use the product. While every writer speaks about getting into the shoes of the users, very few actually do so. It is difficult to look at things from the user’s perspective. This is mostly because of the heterogeneous nature of the users. But, one thing is true for sure. The way the user uses the product is different from the way in which the developer uses it. Hence, do not stick to the developer’s viewpoint.

Mistakes with regard to the writer

• Believing that they know everything about the product by just trying it. Writers also need to know what happens in the background. Some writers believe that it is enough to learn as much as is necessary to convey to the user. But, to convey that information effectively, writers need to know what happens in the background and a lot more about the product before beginning the process of documentation.
• Living under the impression that writing is a fairly simple process. Yes, writing is not as simple as it seems. If a writer has to just construct grammatically correct sentences and deliver them to the user, it would not make any sense. Technical writers need to understand that there is transformation of knowledge about the product and it should be done as a process. Any slight deviation might disrupt the entire flow of knowledge from the writer to the user. It is for this basic reason that some companies designate technical writers as Information developers. They need to develop information that the user can use to carry out his work with the product.
• Ignoring product development meetings. Even though it is not necessary to participate in every meeting where technical elements are discussed, it would be useful to attend meetings such as design meetings, product demos, and presentations that help writers gain a lot of knowledge and save a lot of time.
• Assuming that it is not necessary to know about technology. Writers come in different sizes and shapes. Some writers who hail from a literature background fail to understand the importance of keeping in pace with technology. They find it a sheer waste of time to learn more about technological advances.
• Lacking interest to learn about other product developed within the same company. While it may not be necessary to know about other products that you need not document, it helps a lot to exchange common information whenever necessary. If you are up to date about where the information might be available, it saves the time invested for searching for information.

Ultimately, writers need to realize their role as a part of the entire software development system and that they are not isolated to come up with beautiful sentences and catchy phrases. People have started recognizing the significance of technical writing as a domain the way product design, testing, and development are considered.

Introduction to the Unified Modeling Language

You can construct a house using a load of bricks, nails and other hardware. Yet, to construct a good house, you need to have a planned approach with an estimate and blueprint of how you want your house or building to appear. Architects use blueprints to communicate requirements by expressing your expectations in the form of pictures. These models form the basis upon which the entire house is built. These models also act as a control mechanism to check if you are sticking to plans even mid-way during the process of constructing your house.

Likewise, dishing out lines of code is not just enough to build a software application. Yes, you need to build or construct your application. Initially, you need to come up with models that describe the actions and interactions of the system. You also need to specify the internal functioning of the system so that you can change it as necessary to make it more usable for the end user.

Software professionals borrowed the concept of modeling from the engineering community to enhance the software development process.

One of the definitions of the word 'model' according to Dictionary.com is
“A representation, generally in miniature, to show the construction or appearance of something. “

Models are used to capture and specify the requirements to enhance the ease of understanding for all the parties involved to arrive at an agreement. Engineers construct models of houses and the clients accept or request for changes in the model to avoid problems of failure due to customer dissatisfaction. Architects use models to experiment with possible designs with an aim to innovate while decreasing costs to the optimum. Scientists often use models to master complex systems to clearly explain to everyone and take action on improving the system regardless of the complexity of the system.

Unified Modeling Language

Object Management Group (OMG) is an industry-recognized standardization organization that worked in collaboration with Rational Software Corporation to create the Unified Modeling Language. UML brings together the information systems and technology industry's best engineering practices.

Software blueprints can be written and constructed using Unified Modeling Language. UML is a visual language for modeling and communicating about systems through the use of diagrams and supporting text.

Programmers think and code as soon as the need for the implementation of an idea arises. While writing codes of line is the best way to model, this is not always easily understood by everyone. In object oriented languages, it is difficult for others to understand the classes and their attributes just by looking at the code. Only the developer of the code has an understanding of the classes. UML serves as a common language to aid understanding of the complex classes even to the new members of the team.

UML is a combination of graphical interpretation with well-defined semantics to ensure that different people can interpret the model unambiguously.

UML models can be directly used for construction by connecting to a variety of programming languages. While graphical expression is done using UML, textual expression is done using the various programming languages.

Finally, UML also acts as a source of documenting the various artifacts of the software development process such as - architecture, design, project plans, tests, prototypes, and releases.

Goals of UML

• UML is intended to be used as a general-purpose language for modeling purposes using object oriented techniques.
• It is intended to solve issues related to software development such as large scale, distribution, concurrency, and team development.
• It is aimed to support in the process of software development process by simplifying things while remaining practical.

Simply put, UML is an implementation-independent language to be used regardless of any specific implementation technologies such as Java or .NET.

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References:

• Learning UML
  By
  Sinan Si Alhir
  Publisher : O'Reilly
• The Unified Modeling Language Reference Model
  By
  James Rumbaugh
  Ivar Jacobson
  Grady Booch
  Publisher: Addison-Wesley
  

Nuances of a User Guide

A User Guide is similar to any other document. Yet, it has its own prominence because it acts as a Bible for the tool, application, or software that we use. The technical writer should hence be very careful while preparing a User Guide. There are numerous resources on the Internet that explain the process of making a User Guide - audience analysis, document planning, implementation, review and delivery. Yet, there are certain nuances of a User Guide that a technical writer should understand and apply effectively.

Why?
This is the first question that appears before executing any task. Some perceived personal benefit has to be there before beginning some task. When the user changes from a very old system to a completely new system, the user guide should begin with specifying a solid reason to upgrade to the new system. Either the new system saves time or money. These are the basic motivators for any reader to go ahead. Yet, there are many other motivators that the technical writer can include in the first few sentences of the introduction to grab the attention of the reader. The user, after perceiving a tangible benefit, will be interested to go ahead and try using the application. The tangibility factor is very significant because users might not actually prefer to use any tool that can make them happy without actually knowing how it brings about satisfaction or happiness. It should either help the user save time, or work efficiently or enhance the quality of work.

What?
Once the user is aware of benefits of using the tool, the education about what the tool actually is begins. If it is a software application, the user should clearly understand the purpose of each function in the software before trying to use the functionality. Likewise, it is obviously important for the user to know the process of the flow of application as a whole. Remember to interconnect the different parts of the tool in this section. The user should be able to relate it to other parts with ease. Users are classified as experts, technicians, specialists, and non-specialists. Since it is the responsibility of the technical writer to cater to all of them, care should be taken to phrase the 'what' part of the user guide to explain it clearly to the intended audience. If the audience includes only experts, the writer is fortunate enough to write this part using the appropriate technical jargon. As the process of finding the exact audience becomes hard, the composition of this part also becomes hard. Hence, the technical writer should avoid any complications and pen down thoughts and experiences in a simple and clear fashion.

How?
Now that you have explained the user what the tool is about, you can go about telling how to use it. There are different style guides available that advocate different ways to do it. Yet, the most popular way remains to break this process into a series of steps so that the user does not get confused while trying the tool. Break down the process into smaller chunks and then you can easily write the process in a series of steps. The technical writer should come up with a good number of topics by getting into the shoes of the user and then write step by step instructions for each topic and its sub-topics. The other important point is that there would always be more than one way to do a particular task. The writer should take adequate care and document all the possible ways so that the user is not confused after treading a new path.

Additional open-ended questions such as who, where, when, and what also provide answers that fill in the required answers for your guide. Ultimately the most important thing that the technical writer has to bear in mind is that the user guide should not display the talent of the writer and the writer’s expertise in playing with words. It should instead be empathetic to the user and clearly answer any questions that might arise in the mind of the user, who actually works with the system.

While the TOC, index, and copyrights page include the essential elements of a user guide, the information should be classified into the following - definition, procedure, and a reference. Structured authoring plays a significant role in determining these elements and it also helps in making the process of information gathering easy.

Talking about Technical Writing

I never imagined technical writing to be interesting until I started my stint as a technical writer. The initial days slipped away easily with enthusiasm and a craving to learn more and master as much as possible. As time flew, I have realized the fact that I have learnt very little and need to learn a lot in this field of technical writing.

Technical Communications is not an emerging field. It has been in vogue ever since the first time a man told another how to write and how to walk. Indeed, our parents are great technical communicators in the sense that they teach us how to eat with a chop stick and how to do so many little things of life. The most interesting thing is that they communicate their message with the fewest possible words. Of course, for a toddler audience the simpler it is, the better it is. Even today, there are many things that we tend to communicate with mere gestures to our friends and relatives.

It is not so easy to establish such a rapport with our audience. I wish all my readers were my best friends and could use all the words I ever wanted to. However, there would be no challenge in such a case. I pine for creative challenges. I admit the fact that technical writing is not a creative job in reality. There are some boundaries and many more limitations. However, I have a penchant for explaining things to others and that makes me stick to product documentation and technical communications.