Tue May 18, 2010
So you work at a big hi-tech company and you have questions. Lots of questions. But your manager is in yet another meeting and your deadline is looming. Who do you turn to? Why, your friendly, neighbourhood technical writer of course. Here’s why:
Your technical writer may have written a 500 page manual on how your product works but you sure don’t have time to read that beast. Why not ask the author directly? Your technical writer probably knows more about the product than anyone else.
Who is constantly interviewing marketing and upper management for the latest product definitions and behaviour? Not you.
When Quality Assurance finds a bug they don’t cross-check your code, they check out the documentation. Guess who wrote the documentation.
Does your product spec give little insight into the user interface? Your technical writer thinks like a user. They do not think like you. Trust me on this.
Or maybe you have a really great idea for a product improvement but the thought of writing a proposal to the decision makers puts you off as much as writing an essay in English class did. Technical writers love writing essays. In fact, if they’re on-board with your idea you cannot find a better advocate.