Latest Trends in Technical Writing

In an era defined by rapid technological advancements and constant need for information, technical writing has emerged as a cornerstone of effective communication. Technical writers must equip themselves with innovative tools, methodologies, and have a deeper understanding of user needs. In this session, Sriparna Saha, Head & Associate Director – Technical Writing, Razorpay, uncovers the latest trends that are making waves in the technical writing industry.

Here are some of the top five trends to look out for in technical writing: Use of AI, media-rich documentation and interactive content, data-driven approach, user-centric content design, and content personalization. Now let’s delve deeper.

Key takeaways

Use of AI:

• Technical writers can make use of AI in the content creation lifecycle. It can be leveraged in creation and in research. Using various AI models, research can be done in a much faster and more efficient way.
• It’s always a good idea to make sure that the content from ChatGPT is verified with the right subject matter experts before making use of it. This can improve the efficiency of technical writers by at least 30%.
• ChatGPT can help with not just testing the APIs or testing the sample codes. It also helps to identify where exactly the problem is.

Media-rich documentation

• There are several AI-based tools available today to create media-rich documentation with videos, images, and diagrams.
  • 🍕 Interesting tidbits: Razorpay team incorporated videos into their documentation on certain e-commerce plugins, and there were able to reduce tickets by 50%-80%. Isn’t that amazing!?
• Translation and localization are expensive. But at the same time, when there is a need to cater to a larger set of audiences from different parts of the world, we need to reach out to them in their language. AI can improve productivity at least by 40% to 50% than the traditional tools that are available in the market.
• Documentation portals, these days, offer AI-assisted help inside your documentation.
  • 🔖 Example story: Document360 has Eddy, which can help in answering questions.
• Interactive content (IC) is one step further, where we engage the user with the content. With IC, the first step is to gain the user’s attention and then involve the audience, i.e., making them use certain things on the documentation platform. Research suggests that IC can gain two times more engagement than static content.

Data-driven and User-centric approach:

• Typically, businesses look for how much money we are helping them make or how much money we are helping them save. And thankfully, with the help of documentation, these data is available.
• Technical Writers should focus on the end-consumers – i.e., who they are writing for. They need to participate in Audience Analysis to make sure the documentation is user centric.
• The users are categorized into three categories, people who are already using the product, and people who are exploring the product. And the third broad category, which is your internal team who is looking at docs to help end customers.
• User insights are more valuable than what’s relayed through project managers or developers. You need to make sure you have a mechanism to extract feedback from the users. This can be done via regular user interviews, surveys, etc.
• To facilitate content personalization, user profiling is invariable-where personalized content and responses are created and used. With the help of these information, whenever a user logs in, personalized responses can be generated.

About the Speaker

Sriparna Saha is a seasoned Technical Writer with two decades of experience in technical documentation. She has been in a leadership role for approximately 10 years, leading the tech writing function, curating content strategies and collaborating with cross-functional teams to deliver best-in-class user documentation.

Sriparna thrives on innovation, embracing cutting-edge tools and technologies to sculpt highly efficient processes and teams. Her mantra is, “Content isn’t just information; it’s a powerhouse that adds value for organizations and users. Use it effectively; you will amazed by the results!”