Smart products for smart consumers

The digital transformation has empowered users and consumers in ways that were unimaginable 10 or even 5 years ago.

Combining physical devices with augmented digital representations, smart products today are context- and location-sensitive, highly personalized and constantly interconnected.

From sensors to QR codes to voice recognition and control software, these products are now integrated into dozens of industries. The industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) has reached the automotive, tourism, agrifood, health, security, learning and entertainment sectors.

With the evolution of technology, users have become more active, demanding, informed and aware. They're no longer the passive recipient of a curated stream of content from a single channel: the seller. Until not long ago, companies would target the client first, advertise the product, then offer product information. Alternatively, clients who felt loyal to a certain brand would look for the brand's products specifically.

Today, users search for information first, then get to know the product and eventually link it with one or more companies. Smart users seek information tailored to their own needs at the right time, in the right place and on the device of their choice.

Here is how user expectations have changed:

Contexts:

• Sensitive, responsive information that changes depending on when or where the user accesses it (at home, in the car, at the office...)
• Highly personalized
• Multiple formats available (print, mobile, embedded, online, augmented reality...)

Content:

• Usable with no prior knowledge required
• Always accessible and updated
• Targeted and unambiguous (with the average attention span being around 8 seconds)
• User-centered: the focus shifts from the piece of content to the user, from the product to the service

User experience:

• While using the content, the user wants to feel engaged and even emotionally involved

This is why companies are now looking to create intelligent and accessible information. The process to achieve this is technical communication, i.e. identifying, crafting and distributing information for the safe, responsible and effective use of products and services.

Modern technical communication is moving toward adding intelligence to traditional information.

This means moving away from the concept of static documents and instead designing granular bits of information or independent modules that can be sourced from a single content pool and reused in different contexts and formats.

In addition, smart information can be conceived with the help of simplified and controlled languages. It can be centralized to be retrieved and updated quickly; it can be maintained and improved continuously; it can be made more user-friendly with interactive features (e.g. video, apps).

Technical communicators can leverage the digital transformation by improving the quality of communication and supporting translation and localization operations. In particular, language professionals are usually only involved in the information development stage, but they should work to position themselves at the beginning of the chain, i.e. at the market analysis and product design phases.

The infrastructure, tools, and mindset are important, but the right human competencies can make a difference. For example, by teaming up with other cross-functional specialists, language professionals could go beyond text translation and apply controlled language writing standards, in-context editing, accessibility services and end-to-end terminology management.

Focusing on the use and the result, we can take a 360-degree approach to technical communication and turn information into a fully fledged user assistance system.

Sources:

• Sicilia, T. 2017. Informazione intelligente – sfide ed opportunità. Convegno Unilingue «Traduzione oltre la tradizione: le nuove sfide del futuro», 25-26 June, Varese (Italy).