Technical writing should be understood as a subset of technical communication, which is the art and science of organizing linguistic symbols to communicate technical concepts and procedures to an audience we cannot assume has previous knowledge of the task.
The technical writer, like an instructor in a classroom (another type of technical communicator), attempts to preserve knowledge by recording it in steps and explanations that can apply in almost any context. Technical writers distinguish themselves by being able to remove themselves from a specific knowledge context, understanding what an archetypal user will not know, and then communicating it to them in an organized flow of knowledge that creates the correct hierarchy of concepts in their minds so they can learn it.
An archetypal user, not an “average” user, is an abstraction composed of all the instances of a user trying to understand what the writer has written. This user can be a PhD or a moron, but in both cases, they benefit from having assumptions about their knowledge managed, and as a result, having technical concepts introduced in such a manner that the cumulative knowledge required is built from fundamental principles outward. This enables them to both follow a numbered instruction list, and learn from it.
From those basic definitions, we can assemble a laundry list of technical writing qualifications:
Technical writing is the art and science of passing on information about technology. From that very basic definition of technical writing, we can understand more. Technical writing is also the ability to produce manuals, release notes, user guides, online help, query response strings, error codes, and user interface design.
Technical writing combines the art of writing, or using language efficiently and interestingly to communicate clear meaning, with an understanding of the psychology of humans, including our users. We are more like elementary school teachers than copywriters, but we have the skills of both, as well as skills in technology, page layout, and interface design (now ponderously called “interaction design”).
We are often more like editors than writers, in that we take the words of others, cut out the unnecessary, re-arrange so they can be understood by a newcomer to the process, and then pitch them out the door again. There are similarities to literature in that we, unlike people who are paid to sell products, attempt to describe a process without making it boring.
Technical writing is understanding how users apply technology and how to explain it to them, but technical writing is also going back to those making the technology and explaining how to make it easier to use for the intended audience. We look at the tasks from a user perspective, which is often called user-centric design or user advocacy. We are the only group throughout the whole of the production process that consistently thinks of how the user sees the product.
Technical writing combines the skills of a reporter in finding data with the patience of a teacher in dividing up the information into a sequence of bite-sized chunks for people to understand. Technical writing is also a simple skill of page layout and understanding how documents fit together. Although it is often seen as the last refuge of the unemployed English major, technical writing is a pleasant fusion of the liberal arts world and technology.
From the liberal arts, we take ideas about how to understand other people and communicate with them, and from technology, technical writers take the discipline they use to make every detail of their descriptions accurate. Technical writing is many things related to that skill of explaining technical writing to a wide (not necessarily stupid, not necessarily uninformed, or inexperienced) audience. It is audience compassion and passing along knowledge, which is what teachers, shamans, writers, bards and parents have done for aeons.
Technical writing is passing along knowledge. Technical writing is sharing. Your experience of technical writing may be a vague or uninformative, overwritten manual, but else, technical writing can be opening up a new world for someone.
And when done correctly, it can be not just useful but fun for the writer and readers alike.