Visuals can enhance your technical document by making it more engaging, clear, and memorable. But how do you choose the best type of visual for your purpose, audience, and content? In this article, we will guide you through some basic principles and tips for using visuals in technical writing.
Before you add any visual to your document, you need to ask yourself: what do you want to achieve with it? Do you want to illustrate a concept, explain a process, compare data, or emphasize a point? Depending on your goal, you will need to select a different type of visual, such as a diagram, a flowchart, a table, or a graph. For example, if you want to show the steps of a procedure, a flowchart might be a good choice. If you want to compare the performance of different products, a table or a bar chart might be more suitable.
As you decide on what visuals to use, keep in mind that visuals are not necessarily limited to static images. In fact, you can consider interactive information graphics, multi-frame images such as animated GIF files or even short video clips to engage your audience. Dry technical information can often be presented much more dynamically to tell a story, illustrate a sequence, or involve your audience.
Another factor to consider when choosing a visual is your audience. Who are they, and what do they need to know from your document? How familiar are they with the topic and the terminology? How much detail and explanation do they need? Depending on your audience, you will need to adapt the style, complexity, and format of your visual. For example, if you are writing for a technical expert, you might use a schematic diagram with precise labels and symbols. If you are writing for a general user, you might use a simplified illustration with captions and arrows.
If you have an international audience, it’s also critical to keep localization in mind when you’re designing/considering visuals. Historically, I’ve found limited, value-adding visuals can be helpful even if the language in them isn’t localized, but best practice would be to avoid visuals that depend on language at all.
Diversere feedback should be encouraged and welcomed. While creating technical documentation, I float around the document with the target consumers. Getting feedback from one or two of the folks who may consume it at large before it gets shared can be extremely useful for getting familiar with the target audience. Even better if you can get a diverse set of eyes regularly and understand that audience over time, especially for general users reading technical documents.
Finally, you need to know your content well and decide what information is essential, relevant, and accurate for your visual. You don't want to overload your visual with too much data, text, or colors that might confuse or distract your reader. You also don't want to omit or misrepresent any information that might affect your reader's understanding or decision. Therefore, you need to carefully select, organize, and present your content in a way that is clear, concise, and consistent with your document. For example, if you are using a table, you might use headings, rows, and columns to group and label your data. If you are using a graph, you might use axes, scales, and legends to show and explain your data.
The following can be its own section… Keep accessibility in mind. Use Alt text. If you are using tables, be sure to label column headings and row headings, if appropriate. Don’t merge cells or nest tables. Keep them simple. For graphs, use accessible color choices, clear labels and descriptions, and so on.
Once you have chosen the type, style, and content of your visual, you need to follow some basic design principles to make it effective and attractive. These principles include alignment, contrast, repetition, and proximity. Alignment means that you align your visual elements with each other and with the text of your document. Contrast means that you use different colors, shapes, sizes, or fonts to highlight or differentiate your visual elements. Repetition means that you use the same or similar visual elements throughout your document to create consistency and harmony. Proximity means that you group or separate your visual elements according to their relationship or importance.
To create and edit your visuals, you will need to use some tools and resources that can help you with the design and formatting process. There are many software applications, online platforms, and templates that you can use to create different types of visuals, such as Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Visio, Canva, Piktochart, and more. You can also find and use existing visuals from reputable sources, such as websites, books, journals, or databases, as long as you cite them properly and respect the copyright laws. However, you should always check the quality, accuracy, and relevance of any visual that you use or adapt for your document.
Be sure to save the original file in case edits are needed in the future. Name files clearly and store them in an organized way.
The last step in using visuals in technical writing is to test and revise them before you finalize and publish your document. You should check your visuals for any errors, inconsistencies, or ambiguities that might affect your message or credibility. You should also ask for feedback from your colleagues, clients, or users to see if they understand and appreciate your visuals. Based on your testing and feedback, you should revise your visuals accordingly and make sure they match your goal, audience, and content.
You also have to consider the media the document will be produced in or for, and adapt the visuals for the medium. We all have see web pages that don't function on phone screens, for instance. If the document will be available in more than one medium or format, the illustrations should be tested in each, and if appropriate, separate versions made available to optimize the visuals for each medium. Plain text is easily adapted to different media, but more care must be taken to make sure the visuals are clear and displayed in the correct locations in disparate media formats.