First
and foremost it is writing! One needs an outstanding ability to write; this ability
improves over the years. Second it is a flair for technical stuff, Writing
fiction or poetry needs inspiration from within; tech writing
expects one to
have curiosity, interest, passion and patience to appreciate, understand and
dive deep into the technical details of the software products, more so from a user perspective.
Manu developers would know very well many specific features (after all they
built it) but will have no clue as to what the feature will do tl a specific
user or a user group. Just as car designers are not always great driving
instructors, many software developers can be poor tech writers.Tech writing is supported by many tools.
There ate specialized tools that have grown over the years,
online help has graduated from just popping out a few characters when F1 key is
pressed, to a sophisticated adaptive help that users ‘Help compiler’ for
consistent performance. Many ‘wizards’ use Al techniques to ‘predict’ the
context and provide contextual help. Presentation tools like ‘Macromedia Flash’
(now part of Adobe) and the very recently launched ‘Flex’ from Adobe that
exploits the ‘Rich internet Application’ (RIA) environment are specifically
addressing the needs of Tech writing community. At the higher end, there are
challenging options like ‘demos’ that cab account that the highly publicized
demos given to audiences involving tens of thousands of professionals during
CeBit or Comdex can challenge even people like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs!
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