Technical communication involves communicating about technical or specialized topics through various mediums like websites, instructions, or social media. It aims to make complex information more accessible and usable for its intended audience. Technical communicators add value by helping users be more successful and reducing costs through effective instructions, specifications, training programs, and more user-friendly designs. Some common technical communication jobs include technical writers, editors, illustrators, designers, and researchers.

1. Defining Technical
Communication

2. Technical communication is a broad field and includes any form of communication that exhibits
one or more of the following characteristics:
Communicating about technical or specialized topics, such as computer applications, medical
procedures, or environmental regulations.
Communicating by using technology, such as web pages, help files, or social media sites.
Providing instructions about how to do something, regardless of how technical the task is or
even if technology is used to create or distribute that communication.

3. The value that technical communicators deliver is twofold: They make information more useable
and accessible to those who need that information, and in doing so, they advance the goals of
the companies or organizations that employ them. The following examples illustrate the value of
the products technical communicators produce or the services they provide.

4. Software instructions help users be more successful on their own, improving how easily those
products gain acceptance into the marketplace and reducing costs to support them.
Medical instructions help patients and care-providers manage a patient’s treatment, improving
the health of the patient while reducing costs and risks associated with incorrect care.

5. Functional specifications and proposals help one group of technical experts communicate
effectively with other technical experts, speeding up development cycles, reducing rework
caused by misunderstandings, and eliminating risks associated with miscommunication.
Training programs provide people with new or improved skills, making them more employable
and their organizations and products more efficient and safe

6. Well-designed websites make it easier for users to find information, increasing user traffic to and
satisfaction with those websites.
Technical illustrations clarify steps or identify the parts of a product, letting users focus on
getting their task done quickly or more accurately.
Usability studies uncover problems with how products present themselves to users, helping
those products become more user friendly.

7. The following is a partial list of the different jobs within technical communication:
Technical Writers & Editors
Indexers
Information Architects
Instructional Designers
Technical Illustrators
Globalization & Localization Specialists
Usability & Human Factors Professionals
Visual Designers
Web Designers & Developers
Teachers & Researchers of Technical Communication
Trainers and E-Learning Developers