Technical Writing: Where do you draw the line?

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These are plain steps for some procedure or the other.

These constitute the first part. The meaning derived from these few words arranged into a sentence will bring the user from one place to another on the application.

You place a question mark next to a field on the user interface. User gets stuck there, clicks the question mark and knows instantly how to proceed. Place a question mark, or choose to write an instruction right there on the screen.

You are leaving some signboards here and there. This constitutes the second part.

I am not done with this yet.

You now want the users to know everything about the product. Knowing how way leads on to way and that the user may never come back to read the entire help, it becomes really essential for you to package it for the user. So you place related topics links. When a user walks your way, you want to know if the user had a good time walking your way or not.

You are basically compiling your complete Help into one entity with a lot of gimmicks in it. This you want to present to the user somewhere in the product, again with a lot of gimmicks.

You are giving the user a roadmap.

This constitutes the third important part.

Even with all these with you, I am sure you will agree with me that you asked your way around in a new place you visited. You don’t know the person but the person, being a local, is likely to know the place best, so you don’t mind asking.

So there are support teams the user approaches when there is a need to ask. This constitutes another important step.

Now let me come to my questions.

I may be good at only one of the above. I may not have any say over many of the other things though I have a feeling that I can understand the user’s needs better than many others. So where do I fit in?

What if I am in a small firm where I am the king?

What if I am in a big firm where there is a separate department for one who thinks, one who types something on the keyboard, one who clicks on the mouse and one who sees the display on the computer?

And going back to the allegory, which is more important?

• The road
• The signboard
• The roadmap
• The local chap