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Despite the popular mythology, Benjamin Franklin never proposed the wild turkey as our country's national symbol. He did, however, extol the turkey's admirable qualities and contrast them positively against that of what had become our symbol: the bald eagle.

Why is this relevant to Technical Documentation?

When you use a metaphor for something that's poorly done, you may use the epithet: "That turkey!" This has more to do with the fairly stupid birds bred only for our dinner tables and sandwiches; birds who have no ability to fly and who are engineered to have so much white meat they have trouble standing upright. The wild turkey can fly, even if for only a short distance. It's also pretty smart, for a bird in the wild. And, it keeps to its social structure.

Technical Documentation and Structure

Technical writers build structure into your documentation. Each communications venue and medium works best when structured to meet the needs and expectations of its consumers—those who read and use the content.

Consider a user's guide and a product brochure, for example. Those who use a user's guide most often use it not to learn everything about an application or manufactured product, but to answer a specific question or solve a single problem. Therefore, there's usually quite a bit of repeated information when procedures for a sub element apply to multiple functions of a product. This allows the consumer to find the function and move quickly and efficiently to the element causing a problem or question. If the document forces the reader to jump back and forth, it tends to frustrate the consumer. Frustrated readers will stop reading the document, removing the immediate source of their frustration but...their questions haven't been answered.

Brochures, on the other hand, rarely repeat material. The focus and design of a brochure are different: the smaller size of the document strongly influences this. Plus, product users will not naturally turn to a brochure to answer operational questions. This venue lends itself better to marketing and general public information about a product or service, instead.

Information Design & Usability

The design and implementation of your documents is almost as important as the technical design of your product. After all, your sales will be directly affected by the customers' ability to use your product. Even if your product meets or exceeds every functional need of your customers, they have to understand its use.

A good technical communicator has the experience and skill to design your documentation to meet the needs of the audiences you anticipate for each communications product. This involves usability as well as writing and organization skills. In fact, a good technical communicator is the user's advocate to you and your development team as well as your communicator to your consumers.