This app design is pretty clear, telling the user the valid types of ID and calling for an action (to select). But it would be more clear to say “tap” than “select” since this is a phone app.
When I began looking at my writing experience from a UX perspective for a potential contract at Google, I realized that user experience permeates everything I do. It is the foundation of technical writing.
Technical writers are always asking questions about the user experience:
What does the user need to know?
What is the best way to provide the information?
What level of reading skills do they have?
What is their pre-existing experience with the subject matter?
How can we best accommodate different skill and experience levels?
How do I seamlessly provide the required info, making it findable and making sure it answers all their questions?
What is wrong with this design? What if you want to pay your Macy’s credit card statement. Would you choose “Pay Another Entity,” “Pay a Bill,” or “Pay a Business or Person”? Confusing! Frustrating! The user will likely have to try a few options before they can succeed at their desired task.
The X-factor in user experience design is one more question:
How do we make sure the user’s experience is positive and even delightful?
In my opinion, the technical writer is always the user’s advocate. We have the logical mind to think through every step the user needs to do to perform a task, and on any well-functioning software, app, or web design team, the technical writer is part of the initial design process, collaborating with other experts to find the best way to help the user succeed.
Sprinkling the Fun Flakes
If empathy, logic, and flow are missing, the user is not going to have a good experience, period. If the user can’t figure out what to do, if the app leads to a dead end, if there are no clear indicators of how to find an expected function—the user will feel frustrated and won’t have a positive experience. If the wording is unclear—or worse, badly written or offensive, as in the case of the website of one “UX design expert” I recently viewed—your product is dead in the water.
So cute words, fun graphics, and pleasing haptics are useless unless there is a solid design foundation and clean, clear language.
Technical writers have been helping provide that solid foundation for decades: creating task-focused text that is clear, concise, and useful.
We are the ideal professionals to add the X-factor and sprinkle the fun flakes into the fishbowl:
Compelling, effective language, backed by user research.
Great copy and tone of voice, conveying the brand and connecting personally to the user.
Rewards for accomplishing the tasks. We all like a treat!
Sacha showed entertaining and inspiring examples of videos that have been shot on smartphones, including Hollywood blockbuster films such as Steven Soderbergh’s “High Flying Bird” and “Unsane.” Soderbergh used innovative techniques such as being pushed in a wheelchair instead of using a dolly.
6 Key Principles of Effective Video Storytelling
Choose an opening shot that is going to hook your viewer
Use a lot of close-ups and extreme close-ups to capture detail and evoke interest
Switch camera angles frequently to keep it interesting
Bring it on home with the closing shot—a reward for the viewer, with an image to remember that finishes the story
Use sound to help establish the mood
Evoke emotions in the viewer—we remember how we feel more than what we see or hear
Here’s an example of what I learned. Technical writing “how to” made into art! IMHO! 😉
“Going to California” is a reference to a Led Zeppelin song lyric: “Took my chances on a big jet plane, never let ’em tell you that they’re all the same.” Each pair of students in the class made unique airplanes and unique videos!
Variations on a Theme – Adapting to Your Target Platform
Next I took the principles of great video storytelling and created 3 versions of a video:
Square for Instagram
This one is under 1 minute (timed for an Instagram feed), and square to display well in Instagram.
Short YouTube Version Captures Highlights
This is the length for my Another New York Love Affair art project, where each video is usually under two minutes. It captures the feel of the event, with behind-the-scenes warm-up and a flash on the audience at the beginning.
Full Length
This is the full length of the song. It’s my singing debut, and my Mom might want to see the whole thing!
As a New York-based technical writer with more than two decades of experience writing for clients in varied industries, in locations from Vancouver to New York to Haiti to Chile, I notice universal themes—pain points that affect all of my clients, whatever their business line or type of documentation.
It’s all about the user experience (UX). If your customers and staff can’t use your product or perform their task, the result is pain and frustration!
Top 5 Technical Writing Pain Points
Here are the top 5 technical documentation pain points:
Obsolete! Existing documentation or procedures are out-of-date
Unclear! Instructions are hard to understand, so staff or customers can’t follow correct procedure
Disorganized! People can’t quickly find the information they need
Incomplete! There are no answers for the particular problem or task
Inconsistent! Procedures or instructions have been updated in one place but not another, leading to conflicting and confusing information
First Aid for Technical Writing Pain Points
Here I’ll tell you how good technical writing documentation addresses these pain points, one by one. Turn your user experience (UX) into satisfaction and delight!
One: From Obsolete to Up-to-the-Minute
Documentation quickly becomes obsolete without a plan for updating
Time takes a toll on any set of documentation, bringing changes that require updates. Consider this when you create your documentation, and use a system that will be easy to update. Of course, that train may have already left the station, in which case you need:
A Content Management System to keep track of all your source documents
A regular update process and schedule
A system for keeping track of changes, whether it’s specialized software or simply an Excel spreadsheet or an internal Wiki.
Two: From Unclear to Crystal
User testing is key to ensure your technical documentation is clear
Unreadability leading to lack of understanding is one of the biggest problems with documentation, and it usually occurs because the person who wrote the documentation knows the subject matter well but is not a skilled writer. Ways to ensure your documentation is crystal clear:
Use a simple writing style aimed at an eighth-grade reader
Explain all jargon and technical terms
Get actual users to follow the instructions and test the procedures – sounds like a no-brainer, right? But few companies actually do this!
Three: From Disorganized to Swiss Precision
Tagged and structured content is as organized as a Swiss candy shop
Disorganized, hard-to-find information is a very common problem, especially with complicated software or procedures that require lengthy documentation. If you have a thick binder of operating procedures or a stack of user guides, chances are, no one will look at them. But even a slender tome won’t help if the user can’t find the information they need.
To make your content findable:
Organize topics with clear titles and headings
Deliver content in a searchable online format so that people can quickly look up the subject
Include alternate search terms in your text or tags, so that people kind find a subject even if they don’t know the exact term that they’re looking for
Organize content by user task, not by the software menu structure.
Four: From Incomplete to Spot-On
Do you have gaps in your documentation?
Identifying gaps in the documentation is tricky, because you don’t know what you don’t know. Here are some sleuthing techniques to discover what’s missing and fill the holes:
Test the software or process rigorously, to find out what areas haven’t been documented
Make a list of all the tasks or procedures your users need to perform and correlate this to the existing content to identify gaps
Try doing the task wrong to find out what trouble-shooting tips your users will need
Again, user-test the documentation and watch where they go wrong, as well as what kinds of information they try to look up, then make sure you give them what they need!
Five: From Inconsistent to Single Source
Consistency is king!
Inconsistency is a problem that often creeps in over time as different people update the documentation set, perhaps making changes in one place but not another, or using different terminology to describe the same thing. Even different writing styles can be confusing to the end reader.
With technical writing, consistency is king! To achieve it:
Develop style and terminology guidelines, and follow them
Keep on track by having an editor or dedicated staff member oversee all updates when you have a team making changes
Use a Content Management System such as MadCap Flare to single source your text, so that a change only needs to be made in one place and it will be automatically updated throughout your documentation set.
A Cure for the Pain
An expert technical writer helps you succeed!
What is your top pain point? Do you need a remedy?
Karen Rempel, technical writing expert, to the rescue!
A good documentation specialist can solve your unique problems and create a set of documentation that meets your user needs and is easy to maintain.
The technical writer is the advocate for your user, and brings a perspective that will help you design documentation that is findable, clear, and easy to follow.
You get what you pay for. If you have a complex project, a product that is complicated to use, or procedures that are difficult to perform correctly, you need an experienced, expert technical writer. Budget for a professional, and you will save money in the long run.
So cute words, fun graphics, and pleasing haptics are useless unless there is a solid design foundation and clean, clear language.
