How Technical Writers Analyze the Intended Audience?

Technical writers conduct research on the target audience of the technical information to ensure high-quality technical content. By analyzing user needs, persona, culture, and behavior, they tailor technical information to achieve target audience efficiency.

Understanding the Intended Users

To develop effective technical content, it is important to analyze the intended users’ needs, persona, culture, and behavior. User role, experience, culture, terminology, and other factors are essential for creating easy-to-understand technical information.

Example: User role, experience, culture, terminology, and others.

Identifying information needs for the target groups

Technical writers identify the specific group of users for which the information is intended, such as new joiners, service technicians, operators, and others.

Example: New joiners, service technicians, operators and other.

Service technicians:

• Need technical content to perform daily job.
• Need technical content for repairing different types of tools.
• Need technical content for disassembly and assembly procedures.
• Need technical content for troubleshooting/testing after service.

Developing information for the target users

Technical content is developed using a number of rules and consistencies. Technical writers should use personas, adapt the information for look-up purposes, use consistent terminology and symbols, keep the main message simple and straight-forward, and consider using graphics instead of text.

• Use personas when developing technical information:

A persona is a fictive user of your technical content that represents the needs of the target groups. Upon having knowledge of the different target groups of the technical information, when drafting the actual text, it is not very effective to write for a generalized “they”. Instead, we recommend using personas for better results. A persona acts as a “stand-in” for a real user and enables technical writers to guide decisions about the type of information they should develop and how it should be distributed.

• Adapt the information for look-up purposes:

As per the studies, users prefer speed-reading (scannable) information and only slow down when spot the relevant information, terminology, or key words. Therefore, the information must be easy to scan and easy to understand quickly. Using images is a clever way to adapt the information for look-up purposes.

• Use consistent terminology and symbols:

The users’ speed-reading is aided by consistent wording and symbols as they navigate through the piece of information. As a best practice, you should reuse the recurring terminology, standard phrases and standard images throughout your information solution.

• Keep the main message simple, effective and straight-forward:

The main message to be free from any type of ambiguity and uncertainties to avoid misinterpretation. Practice creating technical information as straight-forward, standalone, and repetitive statement blocks, rather than use of synonyms and articles that refer back to different parts in the information.

• Consider using graphics instead of text whenever suitable:

The graphics overcome the need for long or complicated descriptions. Use of thoughtful graphics helps compensate for the simple sentence instructions and helps users quickly comprehend the requirements.

Analyzing the intended audience is crucial for creating effective technical content. Technical writers must identify the target groups, use personas, and develop technical content that is easy to understand and navigate. By following best practices, technical writers can create high-quality technical content that meets the needs of the intended users.