The future of technical communication in XR

We’ve entered an exciting time of extended reality (XR) and artificial intelligence (AI). In this Wild West both disciplines are in, it seems a pertinent time to reexamine the application of technical communications. I use technical communications instead of technical documentation or technical writing to broaden the scope to the many audiences, deliverables, and objectives of content which are otherwise limited by those terms. I wanted to provide a run through of possibilities leading to what might be the most optimal scenario.

These scenarios could very well not sit all that well with everybody, I know that. AI might create feelings of anxiety, fear, or anger, but it’s here. My focuses are first and foremost on the effectiveness of the method with the audience. My second focus is adapting the skills of technical communicators to the advantages of the technologies. As I conclude, I’ll discuss some of the possibilities for the technical communicator.

To start off, doc sites are the standard. While they act as guidebooks and encyclopedias to a product, they’re boring and take users away from the interface of a product. Videos help with the tedium of doc sites, but it’s better when the doc site connects back to the product for a seamless experience.

In-product help is better. If you can open a panel and have a tutorial on the same page as you’re working, that’s more ideal. In-product help can only contain so much information before you have to refer back to a doc site though, which probably doesn’t connect you back to the UI of the product afterwards.

XR is a completely different experience. How crappy would it be to switch between a VR headset and desktop. Why should users do this? Technical communication must be rethought in XR.

Words on a screen is not ideal for XR. Words read on a screen is slightly better. Avatars speaking to you is better than that.

Virbela, which provides virtual offices to connect teams in one online space, uses live people to attend to users. This is amazing, and a feature that could potentially remain in customer support instances along with other functions. This has got to be expensive though, and doesn’t take advantage of being able to pass over less personal functions to AI bots.

Eek, this is where you might have a problem.

Live people and AI can equally guide people through tutorials. AI bots would be better for repeatable tasks that might require tweaks or diagnostics along the way to ensure the task is performed successfully. Technical communication is a great place for this. An advantage of bots is they can stay with you through the process, respond to questions, and become a powerful resource for enabling the user to accomplish a task.

Bots can provide additional content that might be helpful to a user. They can potentially point you to scripts, and provide an interface where you can modify code in situ. VR Headset advancements are happening quickly, making the ease of use for keyboards in situ an asset for doing other things. Technical communication could utilize this capability quite a bit.

Tasks can get very technical though. They may not be so cut and dry that they can be easily passed through and debugged just like that. These tasks should probably be performed on desktop. An AI bot can remain with you when you switch from a headset to a desktop, providing a seamless product experience. This, I believe, is the best scenario.

What would the technical communication team do here?

A doc site could still be valuable. It may be accessible both inside and outside of a VR headset. Doc sites are a wealth of knowledge to showcase features and functionality, provide comprehensive coverage, and they can also be configured to link and search content really well, putting the user in the driver’s seat.

The technical communication team can provide content for avatar tutorials in addition to a doc site, and other outputs. AI requires input for direction, and the information has to be pertinent to the user’s experience to be an effective method. Machine learning may enable AI to learn from communication, but it must stay within parameters and provide effective, and updated content. Technical communicators need to adjust content based on user response and product changes.

With XR and AI, technical communication may be receiving the interactive elements that’ve historically been absent. These methods, or similar ones, could be used not only to provide a seamless, personalized experience, but to make the content accessible to different skill levels, when desired by the user. The technology could be used to teach developer skills within a given product, to point to additional features or functions the user might be interested in, and to reduce confusion when searching for answers or while in progress accomplishing a task. These are just a few ideas. The future will undoubtedly bring many more!