It is easy to write from what you know. But your reader is not you. What feels obvious to an expert can be baffling to someone seeing your product for the first time. Effective technical writing steps out of the author’s perspective and into the reader’s world, anticipating questions, mistakes, and hesitation before they happen.
Why It Matters for Product Teams
When writers assume too much background knowledge, content stops doing its job. Product teams often design and write for themselves. Experts writing for experts. The result is documentation that looks complete but fails new users at the exact moment they need clarity.
Writing with empathy changes that. It forces teams to slow down, explain intent, and remove hidden assumptions. Readers move forward without stopping to decode what you meant, which keeps learning continuous instead of frustrating.
How to Apply It
Start by being explicit about who the reader is. What do they already know. What is completely new. What might they misunderstand. Replace insider language with plain explanations. If you need to use internal terms, abbreviations, or acronyms, explain them the first time they appear.
Pressure test your content with someone outside the team. If they hesitate, re read a sentence, or guess what you mean, the writing needs work. Write with curiosity. The moment you think they will figure it out is the moment your documentation stops serving its purpose.
Examples
Not Effective: Run the migration using your preferred CLI.
Effective: Run the migration from the command line using your terminal, such as macOS Terminal or Windows PowerShell.
Not Effective: Once the API token is refreshed, continue with the OAuth handshake.
Effective: After you refresh the API token, connect your app again using OAuth, which is a secure sign in process.
You are not the audience. Write for the reader you serve, not the expert you are.
