2-00 (June 2000) by Julie Fisher Special Aspects Australia

 

Introduction

As a technical communicator you know that the work you do adds value to the final product, but how do you demonstrate this to management? Research that I have undertaken recently focused on how technical communicators add value to the development of software, particularly information systems. What is presented here are some examples of how I found technical communicators added value and how I measured the value.

Like their counterparts in the United States, Australian technical communicators work in a wide range of industries, performing many and varied roles in the information technology area. Their contribution to the development and use of technology is often subtle and frequently goes unrecognized. In the case of information technology, where many technical communicators are employed, the literature reports a number of activities that technical communicators are involved in. However, there is little reported research on the specific roles performed and the value of this work.

 

Skill Set of Technical Communicators

A look at a number of major studies of technical communicators and technical communication courses provides a picture of the skill set of a technical communicator. The key skills can be broadly classified as: writing, interpersonal and audience analysis, and communication skills. Apart from the actual writing, technical communicators must also have the following skills:

• Subject knowledge.
• The ability to select the appropriate detail to communicate.
• The ability to organise the information.
• The ability to design and layout the document
• graphics and illustrating
• the ability to edit and revise documents (STC-Manitoba 1994; Green and Nolan 1995).
• Roles Technical Communicators Perform

• 58% make some contribution to the design of the interface
• 46% perform the role of user advocate / understanding the users’ perspective
• 45% spend some time writing online help
• 44% are part of the development team
• 24% are writing system / error messages

Technical communicators were asked to indicate the level to which they agreed with a number of statements on a five point scale of "Strongly Agree" to "Strongly Disagree". The statements related to the different aspects of systems where technical communicators can make a contribution. The results indicated that:

• 50% of respondents believed the online help provided with the system was effective for users
• 28% are consulted by developers on the system and error message text
• 39% believed the error message text was effective for users
• 25% are consulted by the developers on the design of the interface
• 58% are prepared to tell the developers if they believe the interface design is not appropriate for users.

Further case study work was conducted based on the survey results, the aim was to quantify the contribution technical communicators made to the development of systems from the perspective of developers and users. Twenty systems were investigated and developers, users and technical communicators were interviewed. Ten systems used a technical communicator and ten did not. I was therefore able to contrast what users and developers thought of the systems where a technical communicator had been involved compared with systems where there was no technical communicator.

The data collected for the case study confirmed these results. Developers and technical communicators were presented with a number of roles and asked to indicate if they believed these were roles a technical communicator could perform. Not surprising, all ten technical communicators believed these were roles they could perform.

Table 1
Developers’ views on the role of a technical communicator

What is disturbing about these results is that, although all developers believe technical communicators can write user documentation, they do not all believe this extends to writing online help or writing system and error messages.

 

Developers’ Rating of the Technical Communicators’ Contribution

Developers were asked questions relating to the technical communicator’s contribution to the design of the user interface and writing online help and error messages. They were asked to indicate how valuable that contribution was using a 10 point scale, where 1 was ‘No contribution’ and 10 was a ‘Significant contribution’.

Table 2 presents the mean results for both questions for the ten systems that used a technical communicator.

Developers generally believe technical communicators do contribute to the development of the system and their contribution adds value, particularly in the areas of interface design and online help. Only in the area of the design of system and error messages was their contribution rated as less than significant (i.e. less than 5); however, few technical communicators were in fact invited to comment on system and error messages and so it is unlikely their contribution would be significant.

 

Where Technical Communicators Added Value

In the key areas of interface design, online help, and understanding the users’ perspective, technical communicators do add value.

The user interface

With the exception of only two respondents, developers said the technical communicator had contributed significantly to the design of the interface; yet only one technical communicator was specifically responsible for the interface design. One developer reasoned that a technical communicator should participate in interface design because: "A lot of the interface elements are verbally based. It was decided that we really should have someone who could do the writing and do it well."

Table 2
Developers rating of the technical communicators’ contribution

  The technical communicator for another system was consulted frequently on the user interface; this was possible because she was a full time employee. The developer described how her input was managed: the developers would sketch out a screen and then ask for her input. The developer believed that this increased the effectiveness of the system.

The developer of a web-based system used other experts, along with the technical communicator, to design the Web site interface. His reason for doing this was: "It is a particular skill designing Web pages and kiosk type of pages because it is a public interface. The programmers don’t have that skill nor should they have; we don’t expect them to be in that sort of league at this stage."

The users agreed, when they were asked to rate the quality of their interfaces, that systems where a technical communicator had contributed to the interface were rated more highly by the users than the other systems.

Understanding the user’s perspective

All the developers believed that the technical communicator did understand the users’ perspective. A point made by five of the developers was that this was because the technical communicator was not a ‘technical’ person.

Another developer reflected that he had not used the technical communicator enough, in this case the technical communicator was called in late in the development process. He said the technical communicator had successfully explained very complex concepts to a non-technical audience.

This was also the view of another developer who did not use a technical communicator, he commented on the need for someone to take the users’ perspective. He reflected that during the development process the users did not really understand what the developers were designing.

Writing Online Help

Most of the developers said that technical communicators should write online help. However, of the 20 systems, 15 had online help; yet only 5 developers used a technical communicator to write the Help. Of those developers who did not use a technical communicator, three indicated that in the future they would and one said that a technical communicator was currently rewriting the Help system.

Again, the users agreed when they were asked how often they used online help and what did they think of the quality. If the online help was written by a technical communicator the users were more inclined to use the online help and rated it more highly than when it was written by someone such as a developer.

 

Would Developers Use a Technical Communicator Again?

If developers say they would use a technical communicator again, this is a clear indication that developers think technical communicators do add value to the development process. Five of the 20 systems have a technical communicator as a permanent employee, which is a clear acknowledgment, by the developers, of the need for the role. In the other cases

• the developers who had used a technical communicator in the past said they would do so again.
• the developers of two systems where a technical communicator was not involved, both said they saw a need for such a skill.

 

Early Involvement of Technical Communicators

The point at which the technical communicators became involved in the development process is strongly linked to the contribution they were able to make. Seven of the ten technical communicators were involved early, that is at or before the design stage. Table 3 presents the mean ratings given by the developers of those seven systems where the technical communicator was involved early.

Table 3
Developers rating of technical communicators when involved early

 

Conclusions

The results from this research clearly demonstrate that technical communicators can and do add value to the development of information systems, possibly more than has been previously recognized. Technical communicators

• spend significant amounts of time talking with users and helping them understand the new system,
• convey the needs and views of the users back to the developers,
• contribute to the design of the user interface and thereby assist with usability aspects of systems,
• write online help, and
• write error messages (but also assist in editing those messages to ensure they are meaningful for users).

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