Weekly Post 1 : 9/6/2021 - 9/12/2021

During this week’s module reading, I realized that the focus goal was to understand the audience, how they interpret the content written, and what the writers can do when presenting to them. The video “Content Strategy in a Zombie Apocalypse” by Karen McGrane suggests the importance of screen sizes and how technical writers do not have the responsibilities or control of where the user may view the content. Fortunately, we can control how we present our content from different devices by treating each device as necessary as the rest, no matter how ridiculous it may seem. The structure of our content will help make the user have an easy and enjoyable experience. The following reading involved listening to a podcast titled “10-Minute Tech comm,” They interviewed Diane Murphy, a content strategy at Airbnb, where she would talk about her work life. Diane Murphy explains that in her everyday work life, there was always something new and it was not always just writing, which took up most of her time at work; it also involved learning both technical and non-technical sides of the industry. She had to learn about the technical and non-technical sides of the industry to understand what she was writing and to be able to explain it to others, which often contained a lot of technical jargon, which she had to simplify. Diane Murphy must also consider all different users that may one day use the website. After hearing the podcast, I did some reading on chapter two of our assigned textbook, “Letting go of the words writing web content that works” 2nd edition by Ginny Redish in which she talks about how we, as writers, must know our audience and what our aim is when writing to them. It is essential to learn or research the users or audience to understand how much they will understand when reading our content. Because there will be users that will use or read our content on a day-to-day basis or for the first time as a first-time user, it is crucial to get their feedback as it will be the easiest and most efficient way to improve the writing. It is essential to understand that each user may have a goal when on our website, so writers must craft the website in a way that facilitates them accessing or reaching that goal. The chapter also explains personas and how they can help the website become a bit more lively. The importance of personas leads me to the last article written by Shlomo Goltz called “A closer Look at Personas: What they are and how they work, ” He goes more in depth about personas and how they are essential and valuable in technical writing. When making a persona, we must know who the target audience is so that, when researching them, we can mold our work to their behavior and patterns. From then on, we can make a character who has the same behavior patterns and imagine them in scenarios with an end goal where our work would cater to them. Whether using a product or software, this method helps because the audience can relate to this fictional character. Overall, these readings made me understand the importance of the audience and how researching or learning about them will help me evolve into a better writer. I believe that I will use these techniques more in the future to understand better how my target audience may feel about or interpret my writing and to remember the main rule “I am not the user.” Not only that, but I now also know the importance of structure in my writing and how it can be displayed on a wide range of devices. I hope that my writing becomes easily understandable for the potential users who will read my content, as I have learned that the audience is an essential piece to keep in mind when writing.