Design knowledge required for Technical Writers

 Technical Writers produce end user documents, manuals, process documents e,t,c

Technical Writers require good English knowledge and writing capabilities. Along with those capabilities technical writers require some amount of design knowledge .

Some times in the technical document, writers should include some graphics such as

• Design Flow diagram
• Process Flow diagram
• Screen shots of the application
• Electrical and Electronic circuits diagram
• Cover Page diagrams

To draw these diagrams technical writer should know some concepts of graphic design tools. Some of the companies looking graphic design tool knowledge are

• Photoshop
• Snagit
• Visio

Photoshop: Using photoshop, technical writes can design cover pages or they can create flyers kind of documents. If Technical writers have this knowledge, it will be added advantage and also in salary discussion they get more weightage.

Using Photoshop they can deliver cover pages, 

Also to edit the captured images and to resize the images

Snagit: Used to take screenshots. If technical writers want to take screenshot in sub menu, snag it is the very easy tool.

This is used to capture images of the application window

to record the flow of the menu selection in application window.

Visio: Visio is the tool used for many things, but in the technical writing perception, it is used to draw the flow diagrams.

It is also used to draw the engineering diagrams, flow diagrams etc.

Visio is having built in diagrams, just drag and drop and adjust the images according to the required  flow.

If a technical writer is strong enough in these tools along with the core writing skills, that person will have more weightage.