![\"images\"](\"http:\/\/www.encoretechresources.com\/insights\/wp-content\/uploads\/images7.jpg\")
<\/a>Tom has started a new series<\/a> on his I’d Rather Be Writing blog on user-centered design. That’s what all good writing should be: user-, that is, reader-, centered. It’s not the equipment or location that’s benefitting from clarity of expression \u2013 except residually (it can be damaged) \u2013 but the reader who’s seeking to use it properly. And he or she may be in too much of a hurry.<\/p>\nAll good writing puts the reader foremost. Not that writing needs to be overly simplified, but it needs to be engaging \u2013 or, in the case of technical writing, readily decipherable. <\/p>\n
Tom Johnson has spent some time in usability labs watching users interact with his content and, he says, “it’s an eye-opening experience.” He’s got some links in his post relating to the labs, but he’s distilled 12 patterns from them. They include recognizing that users are often in a hurry, that they like visuals and that they don’t necessarily read in sequential order. <\/p>\n
Meeting such human desires is indeed a challenge to technical writers, but those are your publics \u2013 human beings under pressures.<\/p>\n
Tom Johnston writes not not so much about instructions for physical products as software documentation, which is his gig. Yet clarity applies as much to today’s cyber settings as it did to Thomas Hardy’s Wessex novels. <\/p>\n
Tom Johnson urges his tech writing colleagues to design their documentation around his perceived patterns of user behavior. In listing them, he’s done a lot of your work for you. Take advantage of his accomplishments. \u2013 Doug Bedell <\/em> <\/p>\n (Illustration: Simon Gatrell’s book “Thomas Hardy’s Vision of Wessex”)<\/em> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tom Johnson, a technical writer in San Jose, CA, has the right idea: He wants to be sure that technical writing is focused on the reader (that is, the user), not the equipment or processes being explained. They’re obviously important, but the reader is moreso. He or she has got to get it right \u2013 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-communication","category-technology","category-the-writing-life"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.encoretechresources.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4504"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.encoretechresources.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.encoretechresources.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.encoretechresources.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.encoretechresources.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4504"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.encoretechresources.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4516,"href":"http:\/\/www.encoretechresources.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4504\/revisions\/4516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.encoretechresources.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.encoretechresources.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.encoretechresources.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}