Today, technical writers are more often technical communicators: they produce text, images, photographs, charts, live video, screencasts, webcasts, comic books, simulations, and more. And technical communicators face a bewildering array of options: XML, help authoring tools, wikis, customer-generated content, desktop publishing tools, conversion tools, and so on. Instead of creating content in isolation, technical writers coexist with training, collaborate with technical support, and compete with user-generated content.
Other factors further increase the complexity:
- Global markets require global content. Technical writers must create information in their customers’ languages or, as a fallback, simplify content so that readers with limited proficiency in the provided language can understand it.
- Product development cycles are shorter. Information needs to be updated more often. A ...