4 qualities that elevate Tech Writer’s role in a start-up.
My career went off a totally different tangent 4 years ago. After almost a decade, I moved from a sales and customer service profile to a non-customer-facing, tech writing role. You can read about my transition here.
In this blog though, I would like to talk about the 4 qualities that helped me to go beyond just tech writing. These qualities, which also define my personality, have improved over a career span of 13 years.
Empathy
If you can’t think from a reader’s/user’s perspective, you can’t produce effective product documents and most importantly, user-centric microcopies. Yes, empathy is a commonly occurring feeling, but some of us can’t naturally stop the urge to think about others first. It affects our minds in a different, uncontrollable manner, to an extent that we change the way we live our lives. Almost all user-centric tech writers are empaths and for them, users come first. If you are looking to make your product more inclusive, hire a bunch of empaths.
Empathy is required to identify user pain points and work relentlessly to find a solution.
One of the crucial areas to show empathy is when you write copy for error messages. Don’t just throw a message stating “Something went wrong”.
A good practice is to guide them on what needs to be done next. If the user needs to change a setting somewhere, share the path to that setting.
For example:
Suppose a restaurant manager is continuously refreshing his Delivery order screen on a dashboard. The system shows “no orders” thrice. Next time they refresh the dashboard, it would be a good idea to remind the user to check if Delivery Settings have been changed. Adding a path to check this setting would be an added bonus. You will be amazed to see how a single line of information can actually create a good impact on reducing support tickets.
Curiosity
A curious tech writer will eventually become an SME for a product. They are required to know the product inside out as well as understand the user persona to be able to draft UX copies. Being deeply associated with the products make it easier for them to understand what needs to be said about the product in the market and which features to talk about (and maybe not talk about). This makes them your marketing team’s best friend.
You cannot market a product or design a knowledge base if:
a) You don’t know your audience
b) You don’t know how the product works
If you want your marketing team to create impactful campaigns, lock them in a room with a tech writer.
Check out this LinkedIn post I created for World Food Safety Day.
At a time when the whole world is dealing with a pandemic, talking about how our products help in ensuring food safety was important. I proposed this idea and also implemented it. This post also gave us an opportunity to put the spotlight on our product managers.
People Management
One of the best things I learned in my career as a sales and service rep was to manage people. People get things done and hence it is an important skill to have for anyone. Because we play a crucial role in bridging the communication gap between PDT (Product, Design and Technology)team and the rest of the teams, tech writers end up interacting with a lot of people within an organization. This connection that they build over a period is valuable, even in a start-up.
Collaboration is key. Like most jobs out there, working in silos does not yield fruitful results. It becomes more critical to continuously stay in touch while working remotely. This simple thing has been the guiding factor in how design tools are taking a new shape these days. Every tool is going the collaborative way. To make a product, you need a team to brainstorm, research, analyze and then decide. Read this blog written by my colleague on how Figma is redefining how UX specialists collaborate on a project.
Eye for Detail
Tech writers don’t glance through things. Instead, we go through everything with a fine-tooth comb and it does not limit to proofreading. While creating user guides or installation manuals, one cannot afford to miss even a single step. Hence, the entire process has to be evaluated and each step has to be meticulously documented.
You will find that a tech writer often asks too many questions. We probe until we are convinced we have all answers. A good tech writer cannot settle for imperfection. For tech writers, there is always something extra that can be done to improve the experience.
For example:
Consider an online ordering website of a restaurant. It allows users to do a location search and check which restaurant will deliver orders to their location. Also, restaurants can choose to pause delivery services using the client dashboard, in which case, the outlets will not appear in the search results.
I was asked to draft a “no result found” copy, which appears when there are no restaurants nearby to deliver a packed order till the entered location. I am going to give you three copies, and without scrolling down, guess which one is most appropriate.
A. No outlets found near this location
B. Currently, no outlets are delivering orders to this location
C. We do not offer delivery services in this location
Which one would you pick?
Let us consider each copy.
Copy A. No outlets found near this location
The problem here is that we can’t use this copy if an outlet has turned off the delivery services for the time being. Maybe the user already knows that there is an outlet nearby. Showing them this message, say when they are craving for their favourite ice cream, would be quite scandalous I would say. :)
Copy B. Currently, no outlets are delivering orders to this location
This statement is more specific and it starts with “currently”. So what does that imply? It could mean there are no outlets nearby, or maybe there are outlets but none that are delivering orders at the moment. It satisfies both possible conditions, less back-end work too, and everyone is happy (well, at least you can avoid escalations).
Copy C. We do not offer delivery services in this location
Similar to Copy B, this one is specific too, however, we can’t use this statement if an outlet has temporarily turned off delivery services.
Think of it this way:
You placed a delivery order at the nearest McDonald’s yesterday. Today again, you are craving for that double cheeseburger and when you check the McDonald’s app, it tells you they don’t deliver to your location. “They just delivered it yesterday and now they are saying they don’t deliver to your location!”. Annoying right?
Conclusion
These 4 qualities have definitely helped me become a better tech writer and take up more challenging projects. Let me know your thoughts on this and if you have a similar growth experience in your field.
