How to Take the New EU Regulations into Account in Technical Writing

New and more extensive tasks will become an inherent part of technical documentation in the future due to a series of EU directives and regulations that are currently in the legislative process, or will soon come into force (such as the Machinery Regulation, the Ecodesign Directive, and the new Artificial Intelligence Act).

In the first blog of our two-part series, we looked in detail at the EU legislation that is currently affecting the work of technical writers or that is set to do so in the near future.

In our Quanos webinar “Legal changes in technical documentation” (only available in German), Roland Schmeling, Managing Director of consultancy Schmeling + Consultants, made a number of recommendations on how you can deal with this dynamic as a company and, in particular, as a technical writer. Here’s a summary of his most important points:

Product compliance

If it doesn’t yet exist in your company, you need to introduce active product compliance that stays abreast of the legal requirements and any amendments to them. Central requirements management can fulfill this role.

Target group analysis

Analyze your target groups. The digital possibilities are changing the behavior of media users. How do your customers want to receive technical documents? Are you aware of the future requirements and expectations of your customers and users?

Interlinking media

This begs the question “how do you prepare the information on all your channels in suitable formats?” The interlinking of media content will also become increasingly important, for example to guide customers from the label on the product to the manufacturer's website. Furthermore, products are becoming increasingly interlinked with information, which is why the further development of both needs to be coordinated.

Automation

With the skills shortage and declining numbers of students choosing technical communication, you should take full advantage of the opportunities afforded by automation. In the future, it will become almost impossible to work in technical writing with word processing programs alone. The technical communication tool landscape needs to be increasingly integrated into the company-wide system landscape.

Employee qualification

Make the most of further training and development. New roles and tasks are emerging for which you need qualified personnel who you will increasingly be recruiting from a wide variety of fields.

Single source

Amalgamate your internal company data pools to create a single data source – a process that won’t work without terminology and ontologies as a common language.

Quality assurance

Set up a comprehensive quality management system that assesses compliance with all requirements and is not limited to the factual accuracy of technical document contents. Only fully quality-assured information can withstand the complexity of future requirements.

Organizational model

Rethink your current organizational model in technical writing and adapt it so that you are well prepared to tackle the challenges ahead. Ask yourself questions such as: What resources does your technical writing department have? How is it organized? What assets and data pools does it operate? What tools does it use? What products does it create and maintain, what services does it provide, and how does it deploy its resources? Scrutinize your organization across departmental boundaries.

Conclusion: Step up to the challenge!

With the regulations already adopted and in planning, the European Commission is responding to a market environment that is currently witnessing huge change. This means new challenges for businesses and technical writers. Armed with this foreknowledge, you should be pro-active about these developments, think strategically, and carve out time from day-to-day operations to get prepared for this challenge. That’s the only way you will be ready with practical solutions when you really need them.