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Ever
thought about what goes into creating the user manuals or instruction
brochures of your music system, mobile phones or even the car maintenance
guides? Most of us just manage to glance through the item, leave
alone going into the technical details.
Since
such information is meant for the layman, simplifying the jargons
associated with any particular product or process is the key function
of technical writers. A bridge between technology and its users,
technical writing is also the ‘science’ of designing,
validating, and packaging the information created to meet a certain
objective. The irony of the situation is that in spite of playing
such a crucial role, not much work has been done to assess the number
of technical writers in the country. The IT industry, which absorbs
a major chunk of technical writers has also shied away from giving
due credit to this work
 In
today’s customer-centric business model , the very process
of acquiring and losing deals depends on the effectiveness of the
technical writers. According to Priyadarshi Tripathi, consultant,
HCL Infosystems, “Any organisation that is conscious about
the information/messages catering to its customers, employees or
business partners employs technical writers who are specialists.
” Pradeep Henry of Cognizant Technology Solutions adds, “
For a software services organisation, its user manuals and technical
write-ups act as its public face and reflects its level of professionalism.”
Technical
writing as a niche profession
At
a rough estimate, there should be at least one technical writer,
for 30 programmers. But in spite of their growing need, not much
has been done to popularise this profession. Although, technical
communication has been in existence for a long time, its emergence
as a niche profession is only a recent development. According to
the figures furnished by the Society for Technical Communication
(STC) there are roughly 1200/1500 technical writers in India, while
US has over a lakh of technical communicators. Many experts cite
the lack of awareness as a key reason (both among the corporates
and the individuals) to make it a potential career prospect. Technical
writing as a field has various segments, like documentation specialist,
instructional designer, proposal writer, resume writer, copywriter,
marcom specialist, or even a technology journalist. But not many
people are willing to make it a full-fledged profession.
According
to Tripathi, in spite of having an abundance of talent, the problem
is the lack of a proper organised system or infrastructure to groom
them into potential writers. “Unlike the West, here the emphasis
is on ‘on-the-job training’. We hardly have any institution
offering certified courses on this subject. And this hampers the
growth of the profession,” he says. Anissha Aggarwal, assistant
manager-Technical Communication, TCS (Delhi), agrees. According
to her, the lack of certified courses increase the initial training
period of the individual considerably. The veterans in this field
generally have a background in English literature with a technical
background, because of the popularity of on-the-job training, technically
qualified people are preferred over people from other fields.
On
the education front
Lack
of an institutional set-up, in order to train prospective students,
is the prime reason for the area remaining unexplored. According
to Aggarwal, even though the demand for technical writing in India
are growing faster than ever before, there is hardly any institution
which conducts a formal degree course in technical writing. Though
there are some university courses that include a paper in technical
writing (like the certificate course offered by Chennai-based S.
A. International in association with Simon Fraser University, Canada
or the optional paper in Technical Writing by the Calicut University
in their Mass Communication course), their scope is very limited.
However,
things are quite different abroad. There are universities that impart
training just on technical writing. According to Frederick Menezes,
senior technical writer, Veritas India, “There are a host of
foreign universities offering a variety of technical communication
programmes, including Masters degree courses. Many of the universities
also
offer
courses over the Internet.” However, would-be technical writers
are not able to avail of the benefits of such courses due to the
exorbitant fees charged by them. “The costs, by our standards,
are pretty high. A course is broken into several units, and just
a single unit could cost about Rs 25,000,” he adds.
The
only help that most technical writers get, is from mailing lists
like TECHWR-L, TechComm, TWIN and STC (associations/organisations
formed by technical writers) which have an India-specific focus.
Some of the organisations formed by Indian technical writers (holding
daily online seminars) serve as a good guide. These sessions enable
beginners to get an insight into the profession as well as to interact
with the senior members.
The
Industry hurdles
Another
concern area for the growth of technical writing is the kind of
work culture that exists in organisations. As Menezes puts it, “I
think it’s got to do with the attitude of the upper management
in respective organisations. As long as they consider documentation
as a secondary activity, there would be some disparity between software
developers and technical writers.” Debashish Ghosh, a technical
writer on the other hand feels that the disparity is more due to
miscommunication.
The
increasing use of IT in other segments like engineering, automotives,
aeronautics, military, bioinformatics, medicine, mechanics and even
rocket sciences paint an encouraging picture. Besides this, there
is an equal demand coming from newspapers, tech magazines, e-zines,
dotcoms, advertising agencies and technology-based companies like
computer software and hardware firms. According to Gopal Tharoor
of Polaris, “Technical writing can be looked at as a separate
revenue generating department, considering the explosive growth
in the number of software companies venturing into BPO segment and
ITES segment. These two segments call for a lot of outsourcing work
in terms of manuals.”
The
pay package
A
technical writer today can start with an average salary of about
Rs 10,000-14,000 and earn up to Rs 35,000 in 2-3 years. There have
also been indications in terms of vertical growth of an individual
in the organisation. Today an individual can start at the entry
level as a technical communicator, to become a senior technical
communicator (2-3 years experience), a writers’ team leader
(with 5 years of experience) and move on to become the director
of technical communications (10 plus years of experience). Besides
this, he can also aspire to become a quality analyst or a chief
knowledge officer. Says Debashish Ghosh, “Growth potential
depends on the individual. Technical writing is a very creative
field. If you are dedicated and if you get the right opportunities,
it can push you beyond your limits.
With
so much in offering, the future surely looks bright for the technical
writers. Now the time is ripe to take positive steps, in order to
work towards give due status to this unrecognised sector.
Who
can be a Technical Writer
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Better scope for a science graduate with a one-year computer diploma
course.
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A postgraduate degree/diploma in English literature, journalism,
science or Electronics/Computers with a background in creative writing.
*
Knowledge of DTP tools (Page maker), development tools (RoboHelp)
and web tools (HTML and XML coding is a definite advantage for an
online environment.
*
Basic knowledge of computer hardware, operating systems, software
applications and programming languages is an added advantage. Familiarity
with Windows and applications running in the Windows environment
is a must.
*
Knowledge of software applications is definitely a plus.
Technical
Writers’ Associations
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TWIN (the Technical Writers of India), the bonding glue of the
Indian technical writing community, was founded in 1997. The TWIN
mailing list, with over 700 members, is a forum to communicate,
share, and discuss issues about technical writing. It has members
spread all over the world.
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Society for Technical Communication (STC) is an individual membership
organisation dedicated to advancing the arts and science (advancement
of the theory and practice) of technical communication. It is
the largest organisation of its kind in the world. Its 25,000
members include technical writers, editors, graphic designers,
videographers, multimedia developers, both Internet and Intranet
page information designers, translators and others whose work
involves making technical information available to those who need
it.
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