What is technical writing


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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