---
title: "Tech comm trends: Providing value as a generalist in a sea of specialists (Part VI)"
date: 2018-10-02
description: "Principle 5: Conform to the patterns and expectations of the genre and schemas Principle 6: Reduce the complexity of technical language Principle..."
canonical_url: https://idratherbewriting.com/2018/10/02/providing-value-as-generalists-in-specialist-contexts-part-6/
---
# Tech comm trends: Providing value as a generalist in a sea of specialists (Part VI)
For example, when checking into a hotel, users encounter the lobby, receptionist, concierge, waiting area, check-in desk, and other details that trigger users into an automatic routine based on previous experiences. Almost without thought, when users encounter these “prototypes of space” (aligning with their previous details in similar spaces), they know what to do, the routine to follow, what’s expected of them, and what to expect from others.

By prompting users with the right stimuli — stimuli that align with the prototypes the user associates with that space — you help users naturally move about and operate in that space. St. Amant explains:

> By catering my design to meeting your experiences, I make these items easier for you to use in that context.

Every genre has certain expectations around it. When you align your text with these genre conventions, you make it easier for users to find, navigate, and absorb the information.

One of the first steps to organizing and presentation information, therefore, is to understand the expected conventions in the genre. With some genres, the information has such a strong convention that going against it would create confusion and disorientation.

Documentation is a genre that has specific conventions that users expect. What are some of these conventions? Hans van der Meij is an academic researcher who “spent hundreds upon hundreds of hours analysing the products of technical communicators” to arrive at a pattern he calls the Four Components model. In this model, he found that procedures consist of the following four components:

> 

> - goals

> - prerequisite states

> - action and reaction

> - unwanted states (warnings and troubleshooting information)

> 

In other words, these are the core conventions of the documentation genre. When you shape information into these elements, users more naturally understand and interact with the documentation.

![When we follow expected genre conventions, the pieces fit naturally into pre-slotted spaces in our mind for those elements.](https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/idbwmedia.com/images/generalist_specialist_schemas.svg)

But we can apply this idea even further. This four components model (especially with goals, actions, and unwanted states) isn’t too far off from the structure of story itself, which underlies much of the way we see the world, not just documentation. In *The User’s Journey*, Donna Lichaw depicts the structure of story as follows:

![The typical story includes exposition, inciting action, rising action, crisis, climax, denouement, and end. Her depiction of story follows the typical breakdown of “characters, goals, and conflict” — elements Aristotle called out as the foundation of story, she explains. Stories have a clear beginning, middle, and end.](https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/idbwmedia.com/images/lichaw-usage-story.png)

In all my blog posts, presentations, and other writing projects, I always have one primary structure in mind: story. If you can shape information into a story, you’ll never go wrong. For example, recently at work, I was asked to do a competitive analysis of another product. I’d never written a competitive analysis before, and I started by gathering as much information as I could about the competitor’s product. I gathered a ton of information through research, but then I needed to figure out how to organize it.