You’re a technical writer in application development. How can you improve your skills?

The best way to improve your skills as a Technical Writer in app development is to be updated with the latest technologies. It is not necessary that you should learn coding, but atleast know what the current trends and tools used for each technology. Once you think you know enough, and do not want to keep up with the others in the race you become obsolete.

Technical Writing is a blend of understanding the complexity of Technical subject and developing content for the end user. If you are able to understand the nuances of a complex subject and write the content in a concise manner, your job is half way through. With the technology evolving ever fast, the need of the hour is to keep learning the newer trends of Technical Writing while keeping abreast of the latest technology trends.

As a technical writer in application development, improving skills involves continuous learning, hands-on experience, effective communication, familiarity with tools and technologies, user-centric approach, version control and collaboration, code familiarity, and feedback-driven iteration. Engage in ongoing education, work on real-world projects, communicate clearly, learn relevant tools, focus on user needs, collaborate effectively, understand coding basics, and seek feedback for continuous improvement.

Continually study and learn about the subjects you are writing about. Test your documentation in the same manner as QA does. For example, I am writing documentation for games developed in Unity and Unreal, and in order to do this efficiently, I have taken several Unity and Unreal courses and am constantly learning. Think like a developer, test like QA, and remember to write for your audience and still keep it simple.

Always be curious, always keep learning, always admit when you don't know something. Then you can write from a place of honesty, and your learners will feel that.

I would absolutely place this here. Many organizations have marketing style guides which are an excellent jumping-off point that can be tweaked and used for support documentation. This is also a fantastic opportunity, if you're new, to have conversations about less critical things as you get to know the Product, Support, and other teams who will be informing and utilizing your documentation. For example, make sure that you make note of terminology clashes, where multiple words are used for the same idea. Then, using your linguistic skills, choose the best word for the idea and standardize it. You help your entire organization communicate by removing ambiguity.

As I said above, this should be one of the first things you do in your career. Get good at asking questions like: - Who is our average end-user? - What does their daily life look like? - What are the most common support enquiries from this subset of our user base? - Who are our elevated/power users? - What do they do differently or above the average user with our product? - What are their most frequent support enquiries? - Do either of these groups find our support documentation lacking? In which areas? If the documentation you're writing is for a new piece of functionality, you want to ask: - Who is going to use this the most? - Why are we developing this? - What does the average workflow look like for this new functionality?

I have almost no notes on this as I agree 100%. Diversified skillsets and a willingness to learn new tools, industries, and development methodology are cornerstones of this work. I would add to not feel that it is not your place to point these things out, if you are in an honest organization and see places where improvement could be made. You have an educational mindset and your role is built on creating understanding, and assisting the Product and Development Teams if they're open to it can make you more valuable. Just be polite, and get excited about the things they're excited about!

Love this one--I think at many organizations though, this step, as an official process gets torpedoed for time savings. Be vigilant and take it into your own hands. Put calendar reminders in to review content once a year, and reach out and ask questions, even over Teams or Slack.

To thrive as a technical writer in app development, hone both your tech knowledge and writing skills. Delve into the latest technologies and consider learning a coding language. On the writing side, prioritize user needs with clear, concise language, and leverage visuals like screenshots. Expertise comes from mastering different documentation types, using authoring tools, and staying connected with the tech writing community. Practice consistently, seek feedback, and build a portfolio to showcase your abilities.