How to Write About Tech for Non-Tech Audiences: the Graphical User Interface (GUI) Lessons
How can technical communicators deliver easy-to-learn knowledge to non-tech people?
Technology (tech from now on) brings peculiar language and thinking attitudes from tech people. On the other hand, most people who use tech don’t have the time or knowledge background to understand the tech mindset.
Think of journalists in front of a Content Management System (CMS) like WordPress. They aim to craft stories for their audience rather than understand the tech behind the CMS.
However, journalists need to use a CMS for their daily tasks: This is where technical communicators come into play and bring a bridge mindset between tech and non-tech.
The problem is: How can the friction between tech (like CMSs) and users’ purposes (like delivering compelling stories) be minimized?
Building the bridge
There are two learning paths we, as humans, can go through:
- Learning from scratch
- Learning by analogy
Learning from scratch is disruptive, as the newly acquired knowledge cannot be anchored to anything already stored in the learner’s mind…
