Rhea's Blog

Background – Importance of effective communication

As an Engineer, i’ve often only thought about how to complete a task right now with little concern about the future. ENGR 180W, however, has taught and reminded me that one day I may use my skills to design something for others. One part of creating something for an audience, is learning how to communicate with other engineers and businesspeople to design, develop and test a product for this audience. Good communication, thus, involves adapting your writing to different environments and audiences. Adapting your communication skills is a key to success in the engineering field.

It is common for us (future) engineers to think that there’s no need to be concerned with our writing skills. What I’ve come to learn, however, is that if I ever design software or hardware, good communication is vital. If I can’t communicate with other engineers or employers about how to create a product, the product may end up flawed. Bad communication can also make someone seem less credible and others may not take you seriously. Thus, ENGR 180W has taught me the various methods of communication and how to use these methods to prevent these issues. 

The most important method of communication that ENGR 180W has taught me, is a new, effective writing style. In general, people write things with different audiences in mind. Most of my classes teach students how to write for academic audience. Writing for an academic audience can be in the form of things like persuasive or narrative essays . Writing to a business audience or a technical team like in 180W, however requires a different, more specific style of writing. Technical writing is for business teams and technical teams (engineers) who want to design and market a product for wider audiences. 

Writing – Specifications (active voice, user centric)

In other classes, we are taught writing styles that may help us one day write books, journals, encyclopedias, essays, etc. 180W, however, focuses specifically on writing resumes, powerpoint, emails and specifications.  What all of these areas of writing have in common, is being short, to the point and informative. As taught in ENGR 180W, The five main tips to improve our writing style are using active voice, being user-centric, concise, organized (headings) and informative. 

A big part of ENGR 180W writing is about technical and functional specifications. Specifications are written documents that inform other engineers or business members on the design and expectations of a software or hardware based product. Let’s get into why the five main writing tips from 180W, are needed in things like specifications.

One of the tips from 180W is about using active voice. Active voice is important in specifications because its direct, and easy to understand.  Engineers are creating something that can usually be used for a long time, so sounding current when writing about something is important. Doing this can help keep a product alive instead of in the past. 

It’s very important to be user-centric. We have done this in class by writing to/about specific people rather than to a general audience. For example, my 180W team came up with an idea for a product to help lead people who are blind, around obstacles. When writing our specifications, we included “personas” (examples of people who may use our product.) These personas were specifically people who are blind and thus, might benefit from our product instead of just “anybody who can afford it.” This makes our writing user-centric by focusing on specific users, in turn showing how our product benefits them.

In other classes, we are not taught to pay as close attention to the people we write because we aren’t usually creating something for others. Instead the concern when writing to academic audiences is getting our point across, so user-centric writing is not discussed as much. To put the idea and importance of being user-centric into perspective, here is an example. In another class, I might say “Anybody can use a device to lead the blind because it has additional cool features that other can use.” In 180W however, I would say “This product is for people who are blind or visually impaired. This is a tool to navigate them around unfamiliar environments while also having additional features for them to use.” 

Writing- (Short, informative, Organized)

As mentioned, the main reason for writing specifications is so business and technical teams know exactly how to create a product that works, and market it to a specific audience. While things like active voice and being user-centric are important, the final three tips are even more important. This is because the final three writing tips, if not followed, can make teams lose money, time, and can cause products to be made carelessly. This is where the 180W tips on how to be short, organized and informative come in handy. 

In my 180W group, we have come up with personas which can help marketing and even technical teams know what audience(s) to market to/create for.  In addition, we had to have short yet detailed sections in our specifications about the features and functions of our product. If these functions or features are not written with enough detail, designers may miss important steps in the design process. Worse, things may be incorrectly designed in a way that may physically harm users in the future.

Design flaws can also lead to a lot of wasted time and money. If engineers spend a lot of time writing things like specifications, a lot of time can be avoided down the road fixing issues caused by not being specific enough. In other classes, because we are not usually designing something, forgetting to do any of the mentioned tips is not as crucial as is forgetting them in technical writing. While in other classes, doing this may be confusing, in technical writing, it may also make you lose your job or cause potentially harmful product design flaws. 

Expanding to other areas

While I am talking more about specifications, the tips and writing style taught in 180W can/should be used on powerpoints, emails and more. Because of how specific the audience and use for technical writing is, the technical writing style is very different than the writing style taught/used elsewhere. There are, however, some similarities in writing styles for different audiences. 

One area technical writing and academic writing are similar, is powerpoints. In all classes, we are taught to deliver concise points in powerpoints. Nomatter what audience we right to, we never want to confuse them with too much information at once. 

Other classes do have some similarities to the writing style taught in 180W. We are writing to an audience in a way that makes us look credible. It is important to look credible no matter who you write to because people write to reach and often inspire others. We are also taught about communication, but to different kinds of people than engineers communicate with. 

I’m confident that taking and using  a few tips from other classes as well as all tips from 180W will drastically improve my technical writing skills.