Technical communication is a way of communication used to pass information about certain products through the internet, radio, papers and visual content to a specific audience. The communication agencies pass information and also create items through help, technical manuals, ways or procedures to prepare items, user manuals of certain electronics like calculators, and the items that need manuals. This is because when buying them you might not get somebody to explain how to operate them. Also, questionnaires are conducted in this form of communication. Technical communication is very much appreciated in this 21st century since the level of literacy is on the rise.
Technical authorities include illustrators, writers, designers, architects, experienced trainers, user guides and editors. Technical communication originated in ancient Greece and the 20th century but the form of communication was seen to be improving and appreciated during and after the First World War as scripts containing technological things was very important in the manufacture of several things used during the war. In the United States two organizations; the society of technical writers and the association of technical writers and editors were formed and later came together to form the now known a society for technical communication. Also in the United Kingdom the institute of scientific and technical communicators was formed by bringing together three organizations namely the presentation of technical information group, institute of technical publicity and publications and institute of technical authors and illustrators.
Technical communication may somehow be professional as the institutions or associations get those people who are experienced in certain areas to do the work for them or get the information they require from other technical institutions and organizations. It can also be regarded as a responsibility since the organization is primarily based on passing technical information to the audience who might need it for their own good.
There are different ways of determining the purpose and audience of technical communication which mainly depends on how the audience interprets or reacts to a certain piece of work where the most common form of technical communication is writing. When identifying the audience many things involved with technical communication are affected, for example, word selection, graphics used and organization. The audience which is not technical may not understand some words used since it knows nothing about the work but the technical audience understands everything and even wants to read more for its own interests in the work being done. A busy audience may not also be able to read the whole manual or documents because of time hence the contents have to be well organized for easy search and perusal. In most work places, workers at times do not know exactly how to do things in a perfect and organized manner. The institution therefore gets someone to study the situation and give an accurate and coordinated way of doing things to enable the workers to get the correct procedure. This can be done in form of technical manuals and project proposals. However some requirements may vary depending on the needs of specific audiences like in governments where technical communication is so specific depending on different departments within the government.
The main purpose of technical communication is to pass the relevant message to people who need to know something. It can also be used to pass guidelines for specific duties inform of manuals. In most cases the one writing the technical communication materials gets the knowledge from people who know and understand and then transfers it to people who don’t know but need to know.