Overview

One of the biggest challenges for technical communication students is to understand exactly who their audience is and to craft documents appropriate for that audience. Technical communicators are not the only ones who have this problem: Engineers and designers have to shift their thinking to something called "user-centered design." This means creating products and documentation for those products with a top priority of "ease of use" for people who are increasingly overwhelmed by technology in their lives.

What does it mean to make the user's perspective the center for your writing? Remember that the primary goal in technical communication is to communicate. You need to convey your ideas and information in a way your audience will understand. You have to get inside users' heads, to think like a user, and to try out your document on sample users. For large and important documents or interactive products, you may also conduct a formal usability test.

It is very likely you have never written in such a way before. English classes usually require you to express yourself clearly for classmates and the instructor. You are still the center of the enterprise. Journalism classes usually construct audiences around the lowest common denominator, the broadest measure of what people have in common. Technical communicators write for a wider range of audiences and technical experience levels. You may address highly specialized colleagues and semi-technical managers within your company. You may write to clients, customers, and colleagues outside your company. Your company may reach across nationalities and ethnic cultures. In a global village, you will be most successful if you are adaptable and can communicate with people who may not think exactly the same way you do.