I’ll be blogging off and on about The Death of Technical Writing, so let me start by explaining the scope I’ll be talking about. I’m mostly talking about traditonal user documentation (publications and online help) for software. This includes enterprise applications, consumer “in the box” applications, web applications, etc.
This doesn’t include writing about how to use physical things, like HVAC systems, toys, etc., although writers for such products had better beware what I’ve always called “The Lego Effect”. Holly Harkness blogged about The Lego Effect using a different example: Ikea instructions. The Lego Effect is the use of pictures for 100% of the documentation. Unless your product can be documented with 100% pictures, writers with physical products should be OK when all the rest of us lose our jobs.
I once had a job documenting a physical product, and here’s why I think such writers are safe: you can physically hurt yourself with a physical product. And I think there may be a relationship between the degree to which you can hurt yourself and the prevalence of The Lego Effect. You can’t hurt yourself too badly with a Lego, but you can blow up a building with a Chemisorption Analyzer, one of the physical products I documented for the high-tech-rednecks* at Micromeritics. Put the wrong combination of chemicals in the analyzer, crank up the heat and pressure, and you’ve constructed a bomb, literally. So I think there’s some decent job security for whoever’s documenting that now. It would be fun to try to do a 100% pictures version of the Micromeritics doc, but I don’t think the lawyers would get behind it.
So, summing up this introductory post, your job is safe if you write about a physical product that is potentially dangerous. You need to find a new career if you write books or help about a software application. And don’t think you’re going to segue into usability without another degree or certification, either.
*Interestingly, the wikipedia does not define high-tech redneck in its article by that name. The HTRs at Micromeritics were physics-lovin’, chemisorption-peddlin’, deer/elk/boar shootin’, bow huntin’, grammar debatin’, homemade elk jerky eatin’ GA Tech graduates. Yippee, another chance to edit the wikipedia!
March 25, 2008 at 4:26 pm |
If that’s the case, Martha, how do you explain the huge software manuals sections in Borders and Barnes & Noble?
There are dozens of books written each year on Microsoft products alone, and they are among the most user-friendly.
March 25, 2008 at 4:55 pm |
The huge number of manuals in bookstores and available from software manufacturers themselves reflects the products created in recent years and the state of TW today. I’m looking ahead 5-15 years. There will be plenty of time for changing careers and making segues, and of course there will be a few applications/industries for which traditional doc will either make sense or be required.
The key word here is traditional. I will try to blog soon with the reasons I think TW as we know it is going to go away.
March 25, 2008 at 4:58 pm |
Now I’ve got to go figure out how to convince wordpress that “themartyparty” is my name on my foodie blog, and not on this one!
~Martha
March 25, 2008 at 5:48 pm |
I’m glad we finally got to meet at last week’s STC meeting!
March 25, 2008 at 8:43 pm |
I’ve been thinking of myself less as a tech writer and more as a web developer for a few years now. Not because of job security (jobs in the Valley are still pretty plentiful) but because that’s what the employer seems to need. (And because it’s fun — I just don’t have the temperament, never mind the credentials, to switch over to “usability.”) As a web developer, I do specialize in information-rich, highly texty web sites, and some of that text I actually create or edit myself, and most of the text I manage is about software applications. But I feel like there’s a difference in kind, not just degree, between what I do now and the online help and user guide writing we used to do a few years ago. I may be whistling in the dark, but this kind of stuff I’m doing now looks like it’s just getting more in demand all the time.
March 26, 2008 at 5:32 pm |
I agree, and I don’t.
Like most answers in the technical sector, this one is “it depends.” Writers have evolved with each new change in society, technology, or psychology. For example:
- When computers became ubiquitous, did the typewriter or typesetters lose their jobs?
- When Adobe PDFs came onto the scene, did writers or publishers lose their ability to work in paper or other forms?
- As Ikea and others popularize pictorial documentation, is there nothing else you can find that needs to be written?
Traditional user documentation is to technical writing like sculpture is to art. There are many, many more art forms available, and many, many ways to adapt to changing user documentation.