Documentation

Photo by Brett Jordan at Pexels. In the Write the Docs Slack community, folks often ask how to go about deciding what documentation tool or set of tools is the right one to use. I have taken to replying often with a series of questions, instead of answering. Why the Socratic method? Because tooling for docs is a very, very circumstance-specific choice. No one answer is correct. As I have often said in Write the Docs and elsewhere, I firmly believe that a good technical writer can create great docs with pretty much any toolset. Yes, even Microsoft Word, though we might shudder while doing so. ...

Photo by Samson Katt on Pexels. Good docs have (at least) six key characteristics: Findable For documentation to be worth the time spent creating it, the user needs to be able to get to those docs when a problem or curiosity creates a need for information. The best docs do nobody any good if they can’t put their hands or eyes on them when they need them. ...

Photo by Suzy Hazelwood on Pexels. Are docs a good investment? One of the challenges every documentarian faces is justifying the investment in docs. Whether that investment is salary training and professional development expanded doc team tooling dev help for site development It can feel like we technical writers are always battling it out for the company’s money. And, often, the experience is that the money for conferences or books or a new team member goes to other teams instead. Teams that have a clearer line of sight from work to the bottom line of the company’s P&L statement. ...

Photo by Brett Jordan at Pexels. What makes a good technical document? A good technical article, document, or topic has a few key points that make it stand out: It understands the user and has empathy for the situation that brought them here, now. Don’t miss this point. It’s key. A good technical article has to be inside the mind of the user that’s come to the article. ...

Photo by Mat Brown from Pexels. So you’ve done the work and you are ready to convert your docs from one tool to another. I, too, have done this. Actually, I am on my third time through doing such a massive undertaking. This time, as a lone writer having to maintain docs in both the old platform and the new. ...