As technology never stops surprising, it seems like software documentation and technical writing will be closer than ever. Collaboration of those two is something that we could see in recent years. But in 2021, some trends will speed up the progress of both of them. Almost since the start of the previous year, a global pandemic began to show up in all the countries and spread around the world fast. Because of it, every aspect of peoples’ lives needed a significant change and adaptation. In 2021, the situation with it seems a little bit positive though. But the most important is that we have a need to keep up with trends, regardless of whether there is some active pandemic or not. It’s simply who we are as a species. So, let’s see what are those trends related to technical writing and software documentation that we will be facing.
We Will Rely More On Guides
Since online trading and marketing have seen the light in online business, writing has become a truly popular occupation. In the past, writers could only write books and try to sell them through libraries or some TV commercials. Today, there are dozens of ways that people can write on and also sell their work if they want to. Thanks to the Internet and computers generally, we are able to write different genres and types of papers as it allows us to print them easily at our home. One trend that will be popular in 2021 will be the guides. Throughout its long history, writing has brought us many romances, novels, educational articles, informative leaflets, etc. People started to use guides and allow others to learn from their knowledge. It is similar to the teachers’ transmission of his or her knowledge and experience to the students about the particular topics. Through written guides, today we can discover more about the themes we are interested in and learn something new just by visiting websites. Logically, guides are pieces of text that provide certain guidance. They lead us through the depths of some rare data that we usually couldn’t find. That is perhaps the reason why we are more interested in reading them. Acquiring new knowledge wasn’t so easy before as today is. The use of the Internet gives us the opportunity to dig deeper about the topics we had no prior knowledge about. And that’s where guides are so beneficial and valuable. There can be a couple of types of guides we can utilize:
- Tour Guides (guidance about some trip that we intend to go to)
- How-To-Guides (informative articles that provide the solutions on how to do something correctly)
- AP Style For Journalism
- Chicago Style For Publishing
- MLA For Scholarship Citations & APA Style For Scholarly Writing
The Use Of Mobile Phones Will Even Increase
The use of mobile phones has become a hit since the first day of launching the first mobile on a touchscreen. Even before that, where phones had no such a luxury and we had to type on its keyboard buttons, they were used a lot, mostly for communication purposes. Today, not only do we communicate through them by means of social media applications, but we also use many other software applications. Programmers and manufacturers of software documentation and applications often create a version for mobiles too. That’s why we can play video games on them, for example. It is a trend that will only keep growing. In 2021, its use will even be more frequent. Maybe it sounds impossible and you think that it’s already got to its peak, but that is far from the truth. There is a lot more space to improve when it comes to the use of mobile phones. Younger populations use these devices as a daily routine, like having breakfast or going to school or college. The developers have noticed it and will make sure to get a software application to a bigger level.
Utilization Of User-Friendly Tools
Technical writing requires some writing tools that are created to help writers to write unmistakably. It is often the case that writers find it hard to do their job without a single error. It is especially visible in essays, for instance. Online essay writing service reviews are there to help them. Today, due to the widespread existence of websites related to essay writing, writers can see others’ opinions on it and correct their possible mistakes. The use of user-friendly writing tools is another way that can help them achieve that. In 2021, it will be just one of the trends associated with technical writing that writers will commonly take an advantage of. Those helping tools are the most beneficial for those who write in a non-native language. It can help them to boost their grammar, vocabulary, punctuation, the building of the sentences, and many more things that writing demands.
Cloud Services
Another trend that will go boom in 2021, if already didn’t, is the use of cloud services. In the times when people are almost forced to work remotely from home, this trend will be like digging a gold mine. Cloud-based services allow us not to lose our efficiency and productivity while being in lockdown. The work won’t suffer at all, and moreover, it will continue to grow successfully. There are a couple of types of these services that we can use such as SaaS (Software as a Service), IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), Paas (Platform as a Service), and FaaS (Function as a Service).
Conclusion
Each year we face some new trends that we usually follow. It’s in human nature to stay well-informed with the latest news, or versions of something that we are interested in. it is simply how we are functioning. These are just a few trends related to technical writing and software documentation specifically that experts expect to shine. We are all impatient to see what the future holds under its sleeves.
About The Author
Laura C. Fields is a person that knows everything about these topics. She has a big experience in both of them and is someone aware of what changes and trends we could face this year.