. R. Girill Society for Technical Communication/Lawrence Livermore Nat. Lab. (retired) [email protected]
Technical Writing: When Readers are Users
In the April, 2024, issue of MIT's Technology Review, Taylor Majewski argues that 'It's time to retire the term 'user'' (https:// mit.technologyreview.com/24/04/19/1090872/ai-users-people-terms). Majewski thinks it is less demeaning if, for example, we call those involved with games 'players,' those receiving healthcare 'patients,' and those flying on planes 'passengers.' For students drafting technical text, however, recognizing when their readers really are text users--people who seek or need to take ACTION based on what they read--imposes special duties in text design to help those reader actions succeed.
Text For Action
People read 'technical' text for many reasons...sometimes to entertain (science fiction) or even to inspire (nature reports). But most technical text provides a direct or indirect basis for action; its readers are indeed users. Overt instructions show this most directly, of course: medical or safety procedures (how to effectively handle this wound or safely dispose of this chemical). Likewise, software or hardware user guides aim to support applying products to achieve reader computational goals.
Descriptions of past scientific work done or procedures invoked (as in a typical research report or journal article) often indirectly show readers how to mimic or refine past actions so that they can replicate or improve the reported outcomes. Notebooks are a scientist's historical record, but also the basis for extending past work into the future with astute comparisons or refined technique. Even such seemingly passive informational text as ingredient lists are shaped to scaffold future actions by the reader (ingredients are listed not randomly or even alphabetically but in decreasing order by weight because that is most relevant to USING the list for health management or cooking a meal).
Writer Duties to Users
People--including students--who write to help their readers (including themselves later) act as text users have special duties to support such usage. Computer industry leaders in the 1970's--such as IBM and DEC--actually had engineering task forces devoted to discovering just what these extra duties comprised. What did a technical writer need to provide to their reader- users to promote maximum benefit in successful future actions?
Three 'ease of use' dimensions emerged from those engineering studies--each a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for designing USER-adequate technical text:
1. Easy to understand--astute vocabulary choice and within-text scaffolding can convey complex concepts or relationships without frustrating or confusing readers (all the more important for non-native English readers).
2. Easy to find--novels have few finding aids but technical documents should be rich in headings, overt lists, and cross references so that readers eager to act can quickly locate the text passages most relevant to their current planned activity.
3. Task Sufficient--how much should a writer repeat, explain, or compare? The answer depends on intended reader ACTIONS-- enough to enable practical, successful performance when readers-as-users try to carry out processes or procedures from the text.
So viewing one's readers as users (especially for a young, developing writer) is not so much a demeaning insult as a practical, focused reminder of the extra duties that one has to enable successful reader action by means of one's careful text design. The result can be very satisfying for reader and writer alike.
[For a big-picture overview of effective technical text, see http://writeprofessionally.org/techlit/handbooktoc For techniques to improve text usability for readers, see http://writeprofessionally.org/techlit/usability]
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