In early September, I was lucky enough attend Write the Docs Prague 2017 , a three-day conference where some of the brightest minds in techcomm get together and discuss the field's hottest topics.
I picked up a bunch of handy tips at the event – here are some personal highlights. You can find further details about all the speakers and talks mentioned below on this page .
Writing Successful Get Started Documentation
Get started guides demonstrate the value of your product to new users, and help them get them up and running smoothly. They are a central part of any good user manual – so I was excited when I took a look at the conference program and saw that Tim Rogers would be holding a talk about this very topic.
I picked up numerous tips, including the importance of keeping get started guides short and sweet, and how to show the reader the value of a product as quickly and directly as possible.
Categorize Doc Articles to Build a Clear Structure
Structuring your docs well is always a challenge, but there are some easy ways to start getting things in order. As Daniele Procida explained in his presentation What nobody tells you about documentation, you can make a good first step by splitting your docs into four separate, distinct categories (tutorials, how-tos, reference articles and explanations), each with a specific structure and way of reaching a set goal.
Successfully Crowdsourcing Docs
My third highlight comes from Becky Todd 's talk, A content manager's guide to crowdsourcing the docs.
Watching the talk, I learned that crowdsourcing documentation from colleagues is a fantastic way of removing bottlenecks in the authoring process. However, this approach is not without its challenges – in the talk, Becky provided effective solutions for how to keep quality levels consistently high when crowdsourcing content. I learned that it's important to (among other things) build a clear, well-documented content creation process, use style guides, and to provide templates for different information types.
Tag Your Doc-Related Tickets for a Smoother Workflow
At an 'unconference' session I attended, I also picked up a useful tip on how to learn where your docs may need tweaking. Simply ask your support agents to tag any doc-related ticket with a 'doc' tag, and then review all these tickets every week. This will give you a picture of where information might be missing from your documentation.
Any Other Insights?
I hope you found these insights as interesting and helpful as I have. If you have any questions about these points – or even if you have some helpful documentation-related tips of your own to add – please comment below and I'll be delighted to discuss them.
