An inherent part of all Varian products is how they can be used to help save lives in hospitals worldwide. At the heart of this mission lies the User Assistance Development team—linguistic professionals who translate complex technical innovations into user assistance. These include manuals, instructions, guides, and online help systems that support healthcare professionals in their work.
“Clear, precise, and universally easy to understand—sounds simple, right?” says Pia Venovirta, the team lead for Varian’s European user assistance developers, formerly known as technical writers, with a smile. In practice, the task her team tackles is anything but simple.
Venovirta’s team is one of three technical communication teams within Varian’s Global Product Labeling Department with the other teams located in the U.S. and India. These teams are responsible for creating all user assistance material for Varian products. Working closely with product development teams, they ensure that healthcare professionals around the world can easily understand the guidance provided, enabling them to use Varian’s products to help save lives.
“When creating user assistance, we always have to keep the end-user in mind,” Venovirta emphasizes. “We must deliver the right information that the end-users need and include the correct level of detail. Additionally, we must meet the expectations of our multinational audiences, as well as the strict labeling requirements and regulations for the medical devices”.
Beyond Grammar: the need for high-level people skills and attention to both details and the big picture
Contrary to outdated stereotype, the work of user assistance developers extends far beyond ensuring grammatical correctness. Modern technical communication requires cross-disciplinary teamwork with numerous internal stakeholders. While flawless grammar is essential, people skills and the ability to understand large, complex concepts and systems are needed just as much—if not so more.
“Our work is really about people,” explain Venovirta. User assistance developers work as an integral member of the product teams. Throughout each project they gather detailed information on the product and learn how it is used. The user assistance material they create are the result of collaboration between experts from various fields: engineering, product and project management, regulatory, quality assurance, content strategy, terminology, training, and helpdesk. These same experts also review or approve the final publications.”
In terms of skills, Pia Venovirta points out the importance of mastering the English language, which is the original language of the documents and source for all translations.
“There are different levels of language proficiency, and we must achieve a level that allow us to craft text that leaves no room for interpretation, confusion, or errors,” she says. “Our readers are healthcare professionals who might need to solve problems quickly. The text must be clear, precise, and easy to understand.”
Technical communication is an evolving domain
When Pia Venovirta joined Varian, she was the second technical communication expert in the team. Now, two decades later, the team has grown to nine language professionals: six in Finland, two in Germany, and one in Switzerland. Additionally, one content strategist is based in Helsinki.
Most of her team members have a master’s degree in English, either in philology or in translation studies. While there is now a master’s program in technical communication in Finland, becoming a technical communicator is usually an outcome of professional evolution that starts during the latter part of the studies.
Like many other fields, the user assistance domain is constantly evolving. The new generation of healthcare professionals entering the field prefers shorter texts, just like the rest of younger readers.
“Videos are very popular for learning new information,” Venovirta notes. “Therefore, we are integrating them into our work where possible by experimenting with short video snippets in some of our online helps.”
AI is the future, but can’t replace experts
The main tool for Pia Venovirta’s team is an editor for the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA), an XML-based system for authoring and organizing topic-based information. DITA is designed for creating and structuring large amounts of information. Working with the tool resembles coding. All content is tagged semantically and subject to a set of style guides, standards, and automated checks.
AI is another tool that Pia Venovirta and her team are looking into. Adopting AI in technical communication has been a hot topic at recent conferences, and AI plug-ins to DITA tools are already available. According to Venovirta, it would not make sense to ignore the possibilities that AI has to offer. However, no matter how advanced the technological tools may become, they cannot replace the experts in technical communication.
“Technology can help, but a user assistance developer, backed up by a team of professionals from different fields, is needed to ensure that everything is accurate, relevant, and easy to understand, also in the future. There is no room for error in developing instructions for lifesaving cancer treatment software.”
When information on complex technical innovations is massaged together with a multidisciplinary team into a simple and understandable form that meets regulations, standards, and the needs of the end-user, Pia Venovirta is proud of every project her team accomplishes. In these moments, especially, Siemens Healthineers’ values “We win together” and “We own it” come to life.