Technical Communication Metaphors

I distinctly remember a line in the movie, As Good As it Gets, where Jack Nicholson decided that people who talk in metaphors ought to shampoo his crotch. Fortunately for communicators, not everyone shares this bleak, graphic view of the use of metaphors. While they can lead to generalizations and limited definitions, metaphors also compare particular fields of study with recognizable images as a way to explain important functions.

After reading the article, "Implications of Metaphors in Designing Technical Communication," by Charles E. Beck, I developed my own metaphor for the field: technical communication is a cloud.

I have defined technical communication as a cloud for two main reasons. The first is that technical communication, like the cloud, serves a specific, dynamic, and necessary purpose. The second is that the communication pieces designed by a technical communicator serve an aesthetic value to the audience, while clouds offer aesthetic beauty to each individual viewer.

Technical communication serves the specific purposes of describing, explaining and instructing, and translating complex information from the original source into manageable terms for the consumer. Clouds serve the important functions of modifying the solar heat and energy of the earth's atmosphere and releasing the precipitation that leads to growth and development.

Both technical communication and clouds are difficult to define and their various forms/formats serve different purposes. The field of technical communication is difficult to define because it encompasses so many facets of communication: research, writing for online and print documentation, editing, layout and design. Technical communication is used by each consumer for a different purpose. Some people use technical documents to learn how to operate appliances or how to develop a document in a particular software program; some need complex policies or legalese explained in laymen's terms. (To each his own, in a way.) The needs of consumers change constantly as technology continues to advance, so the technical communicator must stay informed to adapt to these changes. Clouds are difficult to define because they, like technology, are constantly changing, and each cloud serves a different purpose (e.g., heat regulation versus moisture release).

Technical communication, like clouds, also offers an aesthetic value to the onlooker (or has the potential to). The layout, formatting, and design of a technical document or website should be clear, concise, and interesting to look at. Certain guidelines should be followed (e.g., margin space, proper color combinations in text, background) to create some consistency and readability, but it is not possible to please everyone. Each person still has his/her own opinion of what "looks pretty." Clouds are the same way. We all know they exist in the sky, but each person develops his/her own ideas about what shape and form they take. No matter what a person sees in technical communication or clouds, s/he will certainly see something that leads to either aesthetic pleasure or frustration!

The metaphor of technical communication as a cloud has its strengths in the way each format and type serves a different, yet difficult to define, purpose. It also shows that technical documents, like clouds, also offer aesthetic value.

The metaphor is not perfect, though!

The main flaw of my metaphor is that typically, the technical communicator has at least some control of the document information, design, and layout. The communicator may have the option to design online versus print documents, choose specific fonts and colors, determine how to incorporate headers, footers, and margins, and write the actual information included in the document. Since a cloud is not a living being, it does not actually decide its shape or function. And we ourselves have absolutely no control over what a cloud's shape will be, whether it looks like an elephant or a taxi, its position in the sky, or when it will release its precipitation. The hope in technical communication is that the main source of information, such as an engineer or manager, will want our expertise and allow us some room for control of the information design.

Overall, no metaphor can entirely capture the essence of anything, but it can help to define and explain certain roles and functions contained in a particular field of study. I have used a metaphor to define technical communication as a cloud that offers aesthetic value while it serves an ever-changing, specific purpose.