The life of a n00b...do you smell fire?
Being the new guy on the team and having limited exposure to “true” technical writing definitely makes me feel a bit intimidated especially when there are individuals with 5-10+ years of experience under their belts. Immediately, I felt as if I needed to catch up and learn about the technologies, methodologies, and any other of the “-ies” words. This fire under my uhh…seat, wasn’t due to any pressure from the team, in fact, they encouraged me to learn at my own pace and not to feel rushed to get into anything. Phew…that’s reassuring.
Well, fast forward to two weeks later, and here I am writing this post, reiterating what I had learned about being a technical writer and user assistance.
First being a technical writer:
I mean technical writer…sounds exciting doesn’t it? I am sure plenty of us grow up saying, “Daddy I want to be a technical writer when I grow up!” However, in all seriousness, it is really an interesting and diverse position. This post about Unexpected Characteristics of Technical Writing summed it up pretty well. And here is my summary of that summary:
- Requires a good amount of social interaction
- Skills in:
- writing
- graphics
- troubleshooting
- coding
- project management
- usability
- etc…etc…etc…
- Knowledge of the software (hopefully this is obvious)
The last bullet was my biggest reason for becoming a technical writer. I love to learn, so what better way to learn and truly understand a product/software than to write how it works? I just learned the basics of a new software tool that we use and now I am excited to use it.
Secondly, user assistance:
After reading the article, What if Readers, Can’t Read?, I was certainly intrigued on how user assistance is shifting. Mainly, because I fit his statistics (as most people my age probably do).
For instance, an average college student buys a text book worth $100, but never opened it. Wow! I thought I was the only idiot who did that…that makes me feel better.
Here are some more shocking stats:
So what does this all mean? We have to adapt to the change of times. I know we are currently doing so by updating our Online Help Files on our new Infinity Platform. We are also constantly researching and understanding the new technologies that will make our jobs more efficient and make our users happier.
As I still have a lot to learn about a lot, I hope you will follow me on my journey to understanding the challenging and changing fields of technical writing and user assistance. And, help keep that fire under my seat going. Who knows maybe you’ll notice a few sparks under yours?