Pizza

What are the most important aspects of being a technical writer?

I used to have a ready answer to this question. But now, I look at it a bit differently and an anecdote comes to mind.  

Fresh out of uni, I worked as a translator. I got a gig to translate, subtitle, and dub an instructional video on how to make pizza. It was for a pizza academy created by a well-known pizza maker.

Doing research, I asked him somewhat bluntly: "Is making the dough the most important part?" He answered: "Every step is important."

My cooking inexperience and the lack of domain knowledge led me to assume pizza making was simple. I identified the part that was hard for me to be the only one that mattered. I disregarded the sauce, the arrangement, and the baking method.

With docs, our job is to educate. Not only through the end product, but through the process as well. Not everybody knows the amount of research and analysis that precedes the doc work. Or the stakeholder and SME management, structuring, content strategy, writing and reviewing processes, plain language, user journeys. Or the pains of single-sourcing, automation, multi-channel publishing, localization, accessibility, and so on. 

And of course, with all of that comes the inescapable truth of always having to keep up with your product's development, continuously expand your domain knowledge, and closely participate in testing and design.

If you can handle all of that, manage to pass it along to your peers and community, and inspire others to get better, always, one step at a time - you start to confidently step into the role of a tech writer.

And the pizza gets better.