The reading for this past week was interesting. It basically focused on how technical communicators (writers) should view their audience/users when writing/designing. The audience should be viewed more as part of the work, by asking "how would the user see this?" or "is this easy to understand?" or "would I know what this terminology means if I was an average joe?"
In fact the readings suggest that technical communicators should not only try to see things like the users would but actually involve the users in the writing/desing of their projects. In the readings many examples were used to show that this idea is beneficial. When the students at UM involved users by creating surveys and trial programs for the users the feedback was very helpful in deteriming what should and should not be added to/taken away from/changed to in the product.
The reading also talks about how difficult it can be to stress the value to coworkers about using users feedback in the actual design or modification of a product. Many designers, engineers, managers cannot see the importance or necessity for "dumming down" what they see as easy to understand. This is a roadblock that technical communicators often face but it is also something that many technical writers today are willing to fight for since the results of using users to help modify products has been so positive.
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I wonder if some of what you talk about can be better accounted for using digital texts. Print manuals can only contain so much information, so writers often have to choose what kind of user they are writing for. In most cases, they will write for the broadest group of users, "dumming down" some of the more technical information into something the majority of users will easily understand.
ReplyDeleteWith digital texts, it seems possible that users could self-identity their skill level or knowledge base and instructions could be delivered that were tailored to their needs. Users already do this on their own when they seek out third-party resources to help them accomplish a task (like selecting a "Web Design for Dummies" book rather than the "Professional Web Design" book next to it).
I'm trying to imagine if such layering of various levels of knowledge are already incorporated into technical writing. Why can't our texts respond to various audiences instead of imagining a single standard?