Technical writing

Technical writers create guidance and documentation to help government technologists making technology decisions. They break down complex technical concepts into clear language. The technical documentation we produce describes how a product or service operates.

The ways we work

Tech writers at GDS use Docs as code to write and manage content. By applying a software development approach to the accompanying documentation, we can maintain consistency and updates.

You can read more about why we use this approach in the blog post published on the Technology in Government blog.

We also:

• undertake research either with the User Researcher or, in a more simplistic way, independently to discover the need for the documentation and what users need
  
• manage existing content to make sure it remains accurate and relevant for the users
  
• use pair writing with the subject matter expert to form a mutual understanding of the work and how content can best support it
• use interviewing techniques to discover more about the work and the content requirements
  

How tech writers define their skills and work

Based on conversations with the tech writer community we’ve found that tech writers:

• need to think about and understand concepts, topics and tools in the abstract
• need to be comfortable with not knowing, but thinking abstractly to create their own understanding
• happy to ask questions, sometimes repeatedly, until they feel the content is as clear as possible
• make a positive contribution to product design and understand design problems
• need clarity on who our users and stakeholders are for each piece of content
• need to understand and use a wide range of tools

This page was last reviewed on 4 September 2023. It needs to be reviewed again on 4 December 2023 by the page owner #design-system-team-channel .

This page was set to be reviewed before 4 December 2023 by the page owner #design-system-team-channel. This might mean the content is out of date.