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

On February 17, 2009, all TVs in the U.S. will switch from analog to digital. This is old news for all of you living in the U.S., but since I don’t live in the U.S., I only heard of this news recently when I visited my family in the U.S. Everyone will need to do so something to convert their TV signals to digital, otherwise they will not be able to watch TV.

I am curious to know how smooth the transition from analog to digital will be. Requiring everyone to setup/do something on their TV/antennas does not sound easy at all, especially for people who are technophobic. So I guess when February 17 comes around, there will be quite a number of people that will be out of signal. One of them will be my grandmother.

Speaking of grandmothers, here’s a funny video poking fun of the transition.

This video is a perfect example of creating documentation without understanding who your users are.

As technical writers, we need to create a documentation plan before we work on a documentation project. One of the questions we need to answer is who our users are.