It takes a truly specialized skill set to design, draft, and document plans for a wide range of products and structures. The professionals who tackle these tasks are computer-aided design (or CAD) technicians, using state-of-the-art drafting software like AutoCAD.
If you’re interested in helping to create everything from office buildings to high-tech machine parts, AutoCAD training is the place to start! You’ll learn how to lay the digital groundwork for industrial machinery, manufactured products, and more—and importantly, how to communicate these ideas in professional and specialized ways to your future teammates, employers, and clients.
To get you started on the right foot, here are three technical writing tips for you to use in the exciting career you earn after your online CAD courses.
1. Understand the Client’s Expectations and Requirements for CAD Projects
When you become a CAD professional, you’ll be eligible for employment in architectural offices, engineering firms, or even on-site at an architectural project’s building location. In every instance, your work will be used to direct the decisions made by your peers in the architecture and construction field.
The first step in effective technical communication is to understand a client and employer’s main expectations and list them clearly. You will then be able to translate these requirements into quantitative values.
“If a major requirement can’t be translated into a number, then it’s not a major one,” says Khadija Ouzzani of the Mechanical Design Forum. “When specific numbers are difficult or do not matter, try to provide descriptive words, pictures, or graphics to communicate the desired goal.”
For example, if a client wants a bridge designed to support freight truck traffic, a CAD professional makes note of the need for their designed bridge to withstand a specific load rating, which they are able to calculate with industry-standard formulas.
CAD technicians help to design structurally sound bridges and overpasses
2. Avoid Slang & Ambiguity: Use Terminology Learned in Online CAD Courses
Online CAD courses will teach you the precise professional terminology used in mechanical and architectural engineering industries. By studying online over time, you’ll expand your vocabulary to feature useful CAD technical terms.
“This is critical for every scientific and engineering discipline. If technical language is not used a functional specification can be left wide open to personal interpretation,” says Barb Schmitz of the newsgroup 3D CAD World. “Be precise and specific with your language.”
This involves reducing ambiguity in your writing wherever possible. Instead of saying “a bit, a while, or longer,” specify dimensions, materials, procedures, and processes in either detailed technical descriptions or visual, graphical data. Producing and communicating this data in the form of clearly labeled, interactive drawings and documents will make this easy for your peers to understand (and is itself made easy with the right training).
3. Develop Professional Communication Skills in CAD Courses Online
If you take CAD courses online with Digital School, you’ll have the opportunity to participate in lessons dedicated to technical writing. Our Technical Communications module prepares CAD career hopefuls like you for the creation of technical documentation that is commonly associated with the modern CAD workplace.
Because CAD technicians interact with others online as well as in person, they need a finely-tuned sense of the field’s digital communication standards. Great document organization, a clean writing style, and detailed notes can make you the kind of person CAD employers look for when hiring team leaders.
Whether you’ll be preparing letters, memos, e-mails, or short reports on project progress, well-practiced and respectful communication skills will help you and your team complete design jobs all the more effective.
Are you interested in pursuing CAD online training?
Visit Digital School to get started.
