Santiful_future Of Technical Communication

Running head: FUTURE OF TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION

Future of Technical Communication: The Four Characteristics All Technical Communicators Need in Moving Forward Stephanie Santiful East Carolina University

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Running head: FUTURE OF TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION

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Abstract This paper explores the four characteristics all technical communication students will need in order to evolve with technical communication. In having these characteristics, students will help to shape the future of technical communications as well as the role in which the field plays in collaborating with both similar and dissimilar fields alike. This paper will demonstrate how lacking these four characteristics could have negative effects for both students and the technical communication field as a whole. It will also express how being able to write only plays a limited role in the future of technical communication. Finally, it will reveal how having these characteristics will allow for the growth and evolvement of technical communication. Keywords: technical communication, collaboration, technical communication students,

Running head: FUTURE OF TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION

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Future of Technical Communication: The Four Characteristics All Technical Communicators Need in Moving Forward Technical Communication is made up of living, breathing individuals. Thus, the TC field can be considered alive. If TC is alive, it is important that it grow, evolve, and adapt. If not, it will die. Though one can assume that the individuals who make up TC offer strengths that has made the field what it is today, it is imperative that future TC students and professionals: 

excel at interpersonal skills

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understand how various individuals will read, comprehend, and interact with documents

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are empathic

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have the ability to recognize what is important

Without these four characteristics, technical communication risks not evolving with other fields that once flourished. In having and maintaining these characteristics, technical communication students, professionals, and the field as a whole have the potential to reach not only individuals from other fields, but to become groundbreakers in technology and communication both separately and combined. Technical communicators educators must ensure that students are equipped with these characteristics when they graduate from technical communication programs. The field itself must also work to make sure that current technical communicators either have or are in the process of developing these characteristics. Characteristics of a Technical Communicator A consensus that many involved in the technical communication share is that all technical communicators must be able to write (Giammona, 2004). While writing obviously plays a

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significant role in technical communication, it is far from the only one. It is true that at their core, technical communicators need to be able to write both efficiently and effectively to do their jobs, they must also communicate with a host of individuals from various backgrounds. Whether they are completing an assignment assigned to them in a field they are unfamiliar or they are tasked with presenting information to individuals in which English is not their first language, technical communicators must know how to interact with people. With a career that heavily relies on a writer’s assumption, technical communicators must remember that in their assuming, they risk performing their job incorrectly. Technical communication students must read about countless scenarios in which they respond how they would handle an issue where they have an assignment to complete, but lack the necessary information to complete it. If students are too shy, avoidant, or arrogant, they may refrain from getting the information they need from the individuals who can provide it to them. One study shows that technical communication managers expressed a wish that technical communication academic programs spent more time on encouraging students to develop interpersonal skills such as “assertiveness and independence” (Kimball, 2015). It seems that the heavy focus of writing in the past for technical communication has almost backfired. The field is filled with individuals who can write, but being able to write and being able to communicate with others are two vastly separate things. Without being able to effectively communicate with others, technical communicators will be stunted in their growth. They may know how to write, but they will not know how to retrieve information from others. Likewise, they may be unsure with how to present information to individuals who do not come from the writer’s exact academic background. This negatively

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effects the technical communication field as being able to effectively acquire and disseminate information are important duties of those who work in the technical communication field. Technical communicators are similar to librarians. While they may only be experts in their fields, they must be able to procure information from other fields and provide it in a manner that makes it seem like they experts in that field. Decatrel (2003) states that “technical communicators are the anthropologists of the technical world for their ability be participantobservers in the efforts in which they are involved” (cited in Giammona, 2004). If technical communicators must be participants and observers in their field, then it is important that they know how to understand how various individuals will read, comprehend, and interact with documents. As previously mentioned, technical communicators are like librarians. Thus, they must interact with both information and people on a daily basis. In doing so, they should be aware that people come from various backgrounds and read, comprehend, and interact with documents in many different ways. In a sense, technical communicators must be both the writer and the audience. Technical communicators must develop a persona that puts themselves in the place of their audience. Meloncon (2017) states that technical communicators need to be aware that their audience have both a “physical and psychological presence.” Often times, technical communicators think of their audience as an individual who will think and act exactly as the writer does. Many, and quite possibly most, times this is not the case. There are various aspects that can come into play when not fully regarding the audience before a technical communicator begins writing. For example, many may not take into the account of the readers may be disabled. This means the audience in which a technical communicator is writing for may not fit the “normal” persona that one creates (Meloncon, 2017). Meloncon (2017) goes

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on to state that “current personas tend to be static and stationary, which limits their ability to fully capture the modern lifestyle.” If technical communicators can’t be open enough to see the vastness that makes up their audience, it will lead to a negative impact of the field. It is not enough to assume that readers will not think like you. Technical communicators must take into account of anything from learning disabilities, to physical limitations, to instances where English is considered a second (or third or fourth, etc.) language. In not doing so, technical communicators are showing a biased toward those who are able-bodied and/or neurotypical. It also excludes those who do not fit these criteria, meaning that they may miss out on information. Technical communicators must spend more time developing personas that fit more than the previously standard criteria. They must continue to see themselves in the place of the audience, and take into the consideration of the needs of their audience and things their audience may not be capable of doing. This should go beyond how the audience thinks. It should include physical and mental limitations. Empathy may seem odd in the context of technical communication. After all, many view technical communication as simply writing and presenting technical information to others. However, empathy plays a significantly important role in the world of technical communicators. Without it, technical communicators run the risk of improperly presenting information to their audience. Simply put, empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of others. In this basic definition, one could hopefully imagine how important empathy would play in technical communication. When a technical communicator engages in communication with someone before they sit down to create whatever assignment they have been tasked with, they need to show empathy to whomever they are speaking with. For example, assume a technical writer has

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been tasked to write information on a new and improved product. A default with the former product resulted in the death of three people. The story of the deaths of these three people and the faulty product stayed in the news for many weeks. The company was sued, lost, and had to lay off several employees to deal with the lost in revenue. A technical writer would need to take all these things in consideration when they start working on their assignment. Because of their empathy, they would be aware that the company is worried about the new product and how it is presented to others. It would be incredibly tone death to present the product in a way that makes light of how dangerous the last product was. However, it would do not look good for the company for the technical writer to focus on how faulty the last product was, and how its faultiness resulted in the deaths of others. Not only do technical communicators need to be empathic in their writing, they also need to be empathic with their explanations. Proof of this is the social media Reddit board entitled, “Explain Like I’m Five” where individuals post questions about a wealth of different topics in which they need other individuals to explain to them certain concepts in a way where the initial poster can understand (Pflugfelder, 2016). In other words, this message board asks for other people to explain complex ideologies in plain language. The title of the board “Explain Like I’m Five” reveals the call for others to be empathic in the way that they explain things to others. Perhaps “five” is an oversimplification, but the creation of the board shows that there are people who have trouble understanding certain concepts. Technical communicators can take the creation of this board into account with how they perform their own job duties. Obviously, one can assume that technical communicators would not explain certain complex topics in a manner to others as if they were a five-year-old. This would be both insulting and bad for business. However, in keeping in consideration that

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difficulties their readers may have in understanding certain notions, technical communicators should be able to simply language (if needed) in a way that their audience can understand it. What is important? That’s a question that all technical communicators should be able to answer. If a technical writer doesn’t know what information is important, how can they be expected to present important information to their audience? While the ability to recognize what information is important doesn’t seem to have an exact name, Jack Molisani, called this skill “the evaluation of importance” (as cited by Giammona, 2017). How to recognize the importance of certain information is a skill that never stops developing. It is always one that can be considered quite challenging. Giammona (2017) argues that many senior-level professionals lack this skill, which may mean these individuals were not taught how to identify and develop this skill. Giammona also argues that having this skill is important to the success of the overall technical communication field. Unfortunately, figuring out what is important can be tough for some students. There is no specific class that teaches one how to recognize what is important and what isn’t. However, as the technical communication field continues to consider more ways to reach students, the development of identifying what is important comes along with it. One such manner of recognizing what is important was revealed in which students learn by gaming (Finseth, 2015). In their gaming, students learn what they do in-game that benefits them and what doesn’t. In short, they learn what’s necessary and important to reaching their goals. In doing so, educators hope that students will be able to not only realize what is important, they will also be able to explain what is important to others. Many believe that the easiest way to learn and learn is to relate the concept of what one is learning and teaching to one’s self. However, technical communicators must be able to not only

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relate the material to themselves, they must also be able to relate it to their personas who are the stand in for their audience. Many times, knowing what’s important comes down to trial and error. A technical communicator may present information that they believe to be important only to discover from feedback that they left out certain information or that they included information that primary readers did not view as relevant. This does not mean that the technical communicator doesn’t know how to recognize what is important, rather it means that they are still developing this skill. Much like the thought of allowing students to game to understand the significance of the importance of information, educators can also rely on doing rather than telling. As humans, we learn by seeing and doing. Educators who provide enough hands-on assignments that encourage students to identify what information is important and will continue to help students develop this much-needed skill. Bluntly put, without it, the field of technical communication is doomed. Ensuring the Future of Technical Communication and Conclusion If students enter the technical communication field equip with these four characters, one can assume that they will be better prepared to handle the evolving field of technical communication. If, however, a student enters the field without these characteristics, the chances of them being able to keep up with the demands of the field, their duties, and the inevitable change of technical communication are slim. Having weak (or no) interpersonal skills means that the new technical communicator is already behind the curve as the duties of a technical communicator rely on the technical communicator’s ability to communicate with others. Technical communicators must be aware of how their audience read, comprehend, and interact with various documents. They must also take into account of the mental and physical limitations that their readers may have. The personas they create should be inclusive to ensure

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that the technical communicator does not accidently exclude their primary readers. Without this skill, the technical communicator will risk tone deaf documents and/or documents that do not reach their intended audience. There is also a chance that technical communicator may insult their readers, which could lead to backlash for the company or organization that are working for. Without empathy, technical writers may present information in a way that appears to be geared specifically toward the person writing it. A technical writer lacking empathy has the potential to alienate audience. It can also lead to negative effects for the company and/or organization that hired the technical writer. Even with items such as manuals, technical communicators need to be empathic and take into consideration the needs of their audience. Something as common place layout has the potential to exclude hundreds of readers. Personas play a role in both how audience read, comprehend, and interact with documents as well as how technical communicators empathize with their audience. Presenting information in which the audience sees images in color is fine, but what about individuals who are colorblind? If the technical communicator doesn’t find another way to show which part of the graphic is red and which part is blue, how will those individuals of the audience who are colorblind get the information that they need? Finally, recognizing what is important is arguably the most important trait a technical communicator can have. If a technical communicator has the three previously mentioned characteristics but lacks the fourth, how will they know which information to present to their audience? Without knowing how to recognize what is important, a technical communicator cannot successfully do their job. Even if they manage to do their job, chances are it will not be done well.

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The future of technical communication will change. It will change because people change as do their needs. As technology advances, technical communicators will be tasked with evolving and adapting to those changes. The “librarians” of technical communication will continue to wear many hats. Writing will still play a major role in technical communication. However, it will not play the only role. Technical communicators and technical communication has no choice but to grow as the fields around it grows. If not, they it will cease to exist.

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References Finseth, C. (2015). Theorycrafting the Classroom. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 45(3),.243-260. Giammona, B. (2004). The future of technical communication: How innovation, technology, information management, and other forces are shaping the future of the profession. Technical Communication, 51(3), 349-366. Kimball, M. (2015). Training and education: Technical communication managers speak out. Technical Communication, 62(2), 135-145. Meloncon, L. (2017). Embodied personas for a mobile world. Technical Communication, 64(1), 50-65. Pflugfelder, E. (2016). Reddit’s “Explain Like I’m Five”: Technical descriptions in the wild. Technical Communication Quarterly, 26(1), 25-41.