A technical communicator can enhance the value of a product by bridging the gap between it and the user. But there are numerous issues technical writers face. Akhtar Pasha and Neema George analyse this field and discover that with the right incentives, technical writing could create immense job opportunities

The technical communication field is offering students from the Arts and Humanities stream better growth prospects and an opportunity to work onsite, says P V Sairaj

Although there is no single technical definition of the term technical communication, the working definition describes technical communicators as people who work in the broader field of business communication. A job profile of a technical writer involves writing and designing user guides, brochures and white papers for a variety of products. Though none of these activities are new, their categorisation under the term Technical Writing is a recent phenomenon.

‘Variety’ aptly describes a technical communicator’s work. In the software industry, technical writers design and develop communication products for programmers, end-users, technical support staff and potential customers. They also work with vertical industries such as banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), telecom and energy.

Ravishankar R, manager for the documentation group, Global Development Centre at Cisco India says, “Till the 1990s technical writing was unknown in India. TCS was the first to recognise the need for technical writers and began developing a documentation team. At first engineers entered this field and they were responsible for technical writing. The trend changed with market conditions and a combination of communication and technical skills is becoming mandatory. Experience in using new tools such as RoboHelp and FrameMaker for creating content became an added advantage.”

Frederick Menezes, former president of Society for Technical Communicators (STC) and technical writer for Veritas Software India adds, “A technical writer bridges the gap between the product and the user.”

Neeraj Bhatia, a senior technical writer at Veritas Software says, “The primary role of a technical writer is to create the instruction documents that ship along with the product. Customers will rarely buy high technology hardware and software products without adequate documentation. Users look at the documentation to demystify the technology behind the products and to help them install, deploy, configure and use these products. Thus, the role of the people creating this interface is significant.”

Size of the market
According to STC, there are 74 technical writers registered with the organisation. Another trade organisation, Technical Writers of India, (TWIN) has a membership of 800. However, there are large numbers of technical writers working in small organisations, which are not registered with either STC or TWIN. According to estimates, this number could range between 2,500 to 3,000. It is also estimated that in Bangalore alone, there are 400 to 500 technical writers working in various firms.

Creating job opportunities
While a technical background for technical writing is a definite advantage, it does not mean that those without a technical background cannot be technical writers. Technical writing is creating interesting job opportunities. P V Sairaj, the content and design services manger at Cognizant Technology Solutions India says, “The technical communication field is allowing students from the Arts and Humanities stream to enter the high-profile software industry, offering them better growth prospects and compensation almost equivalent to software engineers, and an opportunity to work onsite.”

Growth opportunities
Tharun Kumar Unni, the newly elected president of STC India says, “Now that technologies are increasing, technical writers are finding more areas to work on. It is a real challenge to write on new technologies. The working medium itself is a big challenge.”

A technical writer can start his or her career as a trainee technical writer with a starting salary of Rs 8,000 onwards, depending upon the organisation. After gaining two to four years experience he/she can go on to become a technical writer or a senior technical writer drawing a salary of Rs 25,000 and above. Once the person reaches the managerial position, some can diversify into marketing, quality co-ordination, software development or managing a technical team. Other choices include copywriting, marketing communication, and related fields.

The creation process
Writing only acc-ounts for 20-30 percent of the effort put in by a technical communicator. The preparation of a technical communication product involves analysing a problem, designing, development and execution.

In an MNC, a technical writer’s job can start from the conception of the product, involving interaction between various departments like development, quality, marketing and technology teams. There are four key processes involved in end-user documentation: The assessment phase starts from the moment the problem is defined and goals are set regarding what the communication must achieve. During the design phase, a technical writer describes how to present the information. In the development phase, a draft is prepared, and is sent for feedback from others and revised to reflect the comments received. During this process a technical writer uses different tools to draft, including FrameMaker, RoboHelp, Web Works, X Metal, Adobe Photoshop and Visio. Finally in the production phase, the draft is printed and the communication product is finalised.

The Indian English challenge
The English-language as it is taught in Indian schools emphasises on nouns and not verbs. Hence, the final tone of the English language differs from the Queen’s English. Therefore, though India does have a large English-speaking population, it doesn’t meet world standards. So the advantage is only a theoretical advantage that can actually adversely affect the Indian market.

There are a number of MNC subsidiaries in India as well as Indian software services companies and their main market is the US and Europe. When a technical document is sent to the US from India, often MNCs have to conduct a teleconference with their subsidiary to make corrections to understand the true meaning conveyed in the documentation. According to industry sources, MNCs spend crore of rupees in teleconferences calling back for corrections and making changes in documents. By not converting nouns to verbs we are increasing the overall cost. Sanyal says, “This is the major challenge India is facing today and if companies do not realise this, India will loose out on its advantage of being a large English-speaking nation.”

China, India’s biggest competitor in software development, has stop the usage of ‘Chinglish’ and has learnt contemporary English. For example, Dr. Saul Carliner, is currently teaching contemporary English and technical communication as an academic visitor in the Department of English and Communication at the ity university in Hong Kong. Experts feel that India will soon loose the advantage of being the largest English speaking country to China.

Lack of technical communication courses
Though the technical writing field in India is growing faster than ever before, no institution in the country conducts any formal courses on the subject. Ravishankar adds, “There is no structured training available for any fresher wanting to become a technical writer and there is lack of information on the scope of being a technical writer.” People like Ravishankar and others have been successful in introducing technical writing as a separate paper in Calicut University.

R Ramkumar, chief knowledge officer at Cognizant India acknowledges the lack of training as the main reason for technical writing not catching up with the software industry. He says, “We take students from the literature and mass communications stream and provide them with in-house training on customer projects.” Sanyal points out a peculiar problem. He says there is no separate breed of technical writers that are groomed in the country primarily because there is no distinction in teaching technical and non-technical English.

Keeping pace with new technologies is another major challenge for technical writers because many are from an Arts background and hence not exposed to new technological trends. Sunil Gokhale the associate consultant with i-flex Solutions says, “An important challenge is the acceptability and acknowledgement of the role of the writer. It is difficult to change the mindset of Indian people vis-a-vis art forms. The accepted notion in our society is that an art form is a hobby, and so can be paid less and is looked down upon as a profession. This attitude needs to change.” As the profession is better developed in the US, most US-based firms understand the importance of technical writing. Some firms have a single technical writer to manage all their documentation-in such firms a person’s career can stagnate says Subash Babu, technical writer for Siemens Healthcare.
Another technical writer says that they don’t get enough time to complete documentation. Their work is placed last in terms of priority. But the fact is documentation process should go along with the developmental phases of software, which software engineers do not realise.

Summary
A technical writer can wear many hats and play multiple roles—from copywriting to Web content manager to documentation specialist. The government should take an initiative to include technical writing as an elective in universities as it can create more job opportunities in the country. Information is not communication—it has to be shaped into a message.