Why technical writing matters
None is the loneliest number.
TLDR; You only need invest time and resources in technical documentation if you want:
more customers
happy customers
a better product
To so many open source software users, open source documentation is a known, often frustrating impediment to using OSS.
Besides cry-singing 'All By Myself' while randomly mashing buttons, what can we do about that?
I’d like to talk to product owners and related dear ones about why technical documentation matters for more than mitigating angry customer support tickets, and how the documentation creation process works. My goals here are to clarify the importance of that investment, and get you thinking about the ways open source documentation processes work *best* to improve the software and the community.
I’ll cover that in two articles:
Why it’s important to create and maintain good TechDocs
How the key processes in a well-functioning docs ecosystem work
Off we go.
What’s Docs Got to Do With It?
(Sorry, Tina.) As I mentioned earlier, you really only need invest time and resources in technical documentation if you want:
more customers
happy customers
a better product
Though it’s separate (but related) to product development, documentation writing matters just as much to a product’s success for three reasons.
1: Documentation demonstrates trustworthiness
The quality of guides, maps and quick references is a signal of trustworthiness and part of the digital reputation management of a product or service.
Signal you will be a trustworthy brand
As consumers ask “what does this product do for me?”, part of the answer often comes from a look beyond marketing materials to the documentation.
Good technical documentation is a signal of trustworthiness: product maturity and commitment to the product as well as the customer’s success. Reviewing documentation is part of product or service evaluation; when you’re about to climb a mountain, you want an experienced guide.
Documentation is also part of digital reputation management. Links to good documentation will be shared, building brand reputation. Ineffective or missing user guides similarly speak volumes.
In short, when planning technical document management infrastructure and processes, don’t overlook their functions in trust building and reputation management for prospective customers.
2: It Builds Happy Customers
Help customers be wildly successful
The 2011 Harvard study on the "IKEA effect” showed that people put greater value on things they’ve helped build. But: this only applies when the build was successfully completed! Documentation plays a key role in driving project completion, and thus customer loyalty.
TechDocs facilitate customer success, from core deployment guides to recipes for vertical-specific use case configurations. That success connects customers to your product.
3: Writing About a Product Will Make It Better
The very process of documenting the steps to complete a task causes product owners to think in more detail, and from a different perspective. This increases the probability that product defects will be caught before release.
“UX debt” comes from a lack of attention: to mistakes made during implementation, to inadequately-thought-out solutions. Sometimes, the act of a customer walking through your documentation exposes missing steps in the documentation. Sometimes it exposes a product defect or a UX debt.
In every case, it’s valuable to product improvement. Whether a developer is walking through the product by explaining how to use it, or field use exposes defects or gaps in use cases, those docs are facilitating critical feedback.
Always and Forever: TechDocs
At every phase of the product and customer journey, technical documentation provides critical information about the product and its suitability for the consumer, facilitates customer success and loyalty, and gives you meaningful feedback about how the product could be improved to better suit the customer’s needs.
Next time: How the key processes in a well-functioning docs ecosystem work
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