Chapter 17

Chapter 17 discusses “New Media” and its importance in the field of Technical Communication.  New Media consists of “networked digital communication technologies.”  In other words, New Media deals with many of the technological trends in recent years including cell phones, networked systems at work, video games, and how technology may head in the future.  To understand how New Media plays into technical communication, one must heavily consider the audience and what he or she specifically needs.  For example, if a technical writer were working on a development team for a video game, the text displayed on screen would need to meet certain criteria; alternatively, if a technical writer were working for Verizon and writing informational texts, he or she would need to construct it with a different mindset.  A true understanding of “New Media” within technical communication requires an open mind and a significant amount of usability testing.  Even with manuals, for example, the audience may want to receive the information differently; while many electronic products have visual-heavy instructions (DVD players, TVs, etc) others have no instructions at all (Apple products) to reinforce their ease of use.  As Apple shows, sometimes no instructions may be the ultimate demonstration of user simplicity.