Module 9: Audience, Clarity, & Usability Testing
Technical Writing by Tiffani Tijerina is licensed CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 International
Technical Writing by Tiffani Tijerina is licensed CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 International
Research and identify who their readers are, what they need, and their technical backgrounds to tailor documents effectively.
Use ethical persuasion (credibility, logic, and reader awareness) while identifying and removing logical fallacies from their work.
Adapt their writing for international readers by avoiding local slang, keeping sentences simple, and respecting cultural differences.
Cut out fluff, eliminate wordiness, and use active verbs so technical information is easy to read and understand.
Layout documents for quick navigation and run basic user tests to gather feedback and improve their designs.
*Explainer and knowledge check questions generated with Notebook LM, using Open TC 2e, Chapter 24 as the source content.
Note: This chapter is ridiculously long. You only need to read the first part: "Logic - Common Fallacies," but the explainer video will cover the whole chapter.
*Explainer and knowledge check questions generated with Notebook LM, using Open TC 2e, Chapter 11 as the source content.
*Explainer and knowledge check questions generated with Notebook LM, using Open TC 2e, Chapter 6 as the source content.
More than Memos is a YouTube account with some really great analyses of different examples of technical communication. With each module, I'll assign you a video to watch with a different example. Enjoy!
Remember the first couple weeks of class when we all went to find a technical document (it was optional)? Do that again. Find a document in your home or on the internet. Identify whom you believe that audience to be--it doesn't need to be a particular person, but you're going to analyze that document's audience and determine if the author did a good job adapting to their audience.
First, tell us about the document you selected.
Second, answer the following questions about the audience of that document:
Describe the audience. Who are the intended readers?
Describe the audience in terms of the organization they work for and their position or title.
Describe the audience in terms of their occupation, profession, or field.
Describe the audience in terms of their needs for or interest in the information in the document.
Describe how the audience might use the information included in the document.
Describe the technical background of the audience--what do they know and not know about the topic? What are the technical limitations in relation to the document?
Third, tell us about how the author of the document adapted to their audience. Did they do a good job? How might they have done it better?
You are not required to respond to a classmate on this one, but I do encourage you to read their posts.