Shanghai Tech WriterTechnical Writing, Technology, Web2.0, Google, Shanghai, China

I got a good laugh out of this one. I can’t say how many times I’ve wanted to do just that in documentation!

At NI, some of the hardest documentation to write are conceptual topics that are highly complex, technical, and mathematical. LabVIEW add-ons like Advanced Signal Processing Toolkit, Digital Filter Design Toolkit, and System Identification Toolkit require some basic knowledge of complex engineering and mathematical concepts before users are comfortable using these products. That means we are required to include quite a bit of conceptual information in documentation to help users brush up on things they might have learned ages ago in school. That also means technical writers struggle a lot when writing and reviewing these topics in documentation. As far as I know, most of the technical writers at NI majored in English or something similar. Things like Fast Fourier transform, zero-pole-gain, LMS algorithms, transfer function, and Kalman filter mean absolutely nada to us! And yet, it is our job to write and review these topics.

Thankfully, our developers are very helpful and provide all the necessary information and basis to help us get started. Some developers will help us write most of the conceptual information while others provide specs with detailed explanation. We just have to dig through all the jargon, look for and add missing content, and stitch all the pieces together. It’s like working on a 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle without a clue what the final picture looks like.

There are many times I’ve been stuck, like really struck, writing a difficult topic. Staring at all the materials at hand while trying to decipher and rewrite the jargon is extremely frustrating. On top of that, the thought of our work being under utilized (who reads help manuals anyway?) makes me want to just make up something when I’m stuck. It’s all jargon anyway.

That’s my life as a technical writer!