by: Kai Weber

“How exciting is technical writing, really?” Every once in a while, discussions in blogs or at conferences turn to that question. How technical writing is not really a calling or maybe even boring. On this site, Tom Johnson has recently argued that technical communication as such offers little to be unstoppable about. I disagree: I’ve been doing technical writing for 20 years now, full-time for 10, and I find it fulfilling and engaging in itself. In different companies, I’ve also done sales, marketing and product management, and I’ve always returned to documentation. Technical writing is my creative passion. I don’t have a recipe, but I want to share my excitement. Maybe it resonates with you, and maybe you’ll see technical writing in a different way.

The Big Why

Why do people contribute to Wikipedia? I guess some want to share their knowledge about a topic, but their excitement, too. They want to get it right, and they want others to get it.

Why do people go into teaching? I guess some do for a similar reason. They see something in English lit or math or history that fascinates them and lets them make sense of the world we live in. They offer up their hard-earned understanding to witness a student’s growth and comprehension.

Why do people go into technical writing? To me, it’s a way to make sense of the stuff in my world. I want to get it right, and I want others to get it, too. As Steve Borokowski put it: “To enjoy confronting the baffling, making it clear, and teaching it to others.” Confronting the baffling is the challenge to explain a product. But more importantly, it is the opportunity to enrich and improve a human experience. To me that’s more exciting than unbaffling something.

The Passion of Human Experiences

The product I write about is not the end of my work, it’s a beginning at best. The actual sample, the new version before me guides my exploration of its purpose, its intentions, of the ideal behind it. It’s that ideal that fascinates me and guides my writing. I work with a wildly complex and customizable piece of financial software. Enumerating countless interface options doesn’t help my readers a lot. Walking them through configurations and operational procedures is tedious, yet sometimes unavoidable. But showing them how the right setup helps them to avoid hard-to-spot errors and makes their daily job less repetitive is really cool. That makes a difference to my readers.

When my documentation shows users how the product works, I’m the product’s advocate. When it shows users how to get their jobs done, I’m their advocate. When it shows users how to make their job better, they can become advocates of the product. Which scenario is the most successful? Which is best for the writer and his or her employer?

I didn’t think of this all by myself. Charlene Li’s book Groundswell encouraged me to decide what kind of relationship I want to have with users, beyond just talking at them. (More about this in my review on the Content Wrangler network). Kathy Sierra’s “Kick Ass Curve” taught me about the passion threshold and about “Creating Passionate Users,” as her blog is called. (Even though she stopped writing in April 2007, it’s still fresh and relevant. I thank her for keeping such an inspiring resource online!) Putting a face to my documentation, whether from personas or user interviews, and engaging users has certainly put some spunk into my work.

The Craft of the Creative Process

Writing documentation is also a creative process. I can use the same methods of artistic creation, whether I’m writing a song or a manual. If these methods are tough enough to jumpstart a fickle artistic process, they can surely give my technical writing a little push. For example, if the structure of my manual doesn’t work, if the elements don’t cohere, I’ll try out different elements or chunk my topics differently. Maybe I need to describe tasks instead of modules. If my procedures or my topics run too long, I try a different focal length. Maybe I’m taking the reader up too close, and we need to step back a little. (I owe the metaphor of focal length and much else that I know about creative processes to choreographer Twyla Tharp and her book The Creative Habit.) The creative process reminds me there’s any number of ways to communicate and that it’s worthwhile to think outside the box – or the cubicle.

I’ve started comparing technical writing to artistic creation when I came to appreciate how much craft goes into art. How valuable the right tools are and the right setting. How important it is to be prepared and disciplined. Larry Brooks offers a helpful distinction: “The art resides in the design, and the craft resides in the execution.” Indeed, I find designing both the layout and the structure is the most creative aspect in technical communication.

Pursuing technical writing as a creative passion is not so much a method, but an attitude. For the methods, I still rely on topic-based authoring, task-oriented writing and all the skills I’ve acquired. It’s the attitude that keeps my mind open to innovative solutions. At the same time, it keeps me focused on the purpose behind the product, the user and his experience, so I don’t get bogged down with tools or grammar. I try to balance art and craft and to focus on the experience that my readers and I share.

About the author: Kai Weber has been writing, editing and translating software documentation since 1988. He has been a full-time technical writer since 1999 with a focus on financial and banking systems since 2001. He has designed and
created topic-based and single-sourced documentation for corporate applications such as investment management systems, financial terminals, APIs and system architectures in English and German. His other passions include music and the deserts of the American Southwest.

Photo from http://sxc.hu

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2. The importance of process documentation
3. Leaving the world of technical communication