Definition of IT Documentation Software

Whether it be documenting a product or describing internal IT processes, IT documentation enables users (internal or external) to be able to comprehend your software. It’s often presented in written format but includes multimedia content such as video and audio.

IT documentation provides user help and also mitigates potential legal action as a result of misuse of your products. When software is properly documented, this increases usability, retention, and overall customer lifetime value because customers are getting more from your product.

Typically, IT documentation might include software and other technical specifications, user guides and manuals, reference docs, and process documentation. If something about your software product might be relevant to a user or other stakeholder, it’s a good idea to document it.

The Role of IT Documentation in DevOps

DevOps is all about reducing traditional siloes, and you need proper IT documentation to achieve that lofty aim. So, the role of IT documentation in DevOps involves documenting the parts of the software that pertain to the development and operations teams or both teams combined if that is how your organization is structured.

Since DevOps is the province of high-velocity, agile teams who wish to disrupt more traditional methods of developing software, IT documentation is vital for teams aiming to reach these goals. It reduces misunderstandings, enables team members to collaborate, and helps educate customers and other users.

Understanding DevOps Principles

In order to properly appreciate the role of IT documentation in DevOps, it is first necessary to understand some core DevOps principles involving a shift in the culture of the way your company operates.

• Collaboration – instead of focusing exclusively on their own domains, development and operations teams collaborate closely under the DevOps model and are often integrated. Communication and feedback are key to the proper functioning of the DevOps team, with the shared goal of developing software products that are fit for customers.
• Continuous improvement – DevOps teams continuously experiment with the product and try to reduce waste with agile development practices. This principle keeps costs down and emphasizes the speed of delivery.
• Customer-centricity – it sounds obvious, but DevOps produce products that are closely aligned with customer needs based on short feedback loops, which means that you are continually monitoring customers and shipping releases based on the insights you gather.
• Automation – DevOps teams, make full use of automation during the software development lifecycle to ensure they are conserving resources and relieving the need for developers to complete tasks manually.

How IT Documentation Supports DevOps

So, if you’re following these core principles in your DevOps team then you will need to use IT documentation to support your efforts. For example, suppose you make changes in your software product (or choose not to change it) to suit your customers’ needs better. In that case, you’ll need to document exactly why you made these decisions so future developments don’t undermine your efforts.

Equally, DevOps teams need to make decisions concerning the infrastructure and development of their software product. In order for engineers and programmers to work most effectively, these decisions need to be documented to help stakeholders understand how the system works.

Finally, DevOps teams must deliver software that is customer-centric and continuously evolving, so for that, you need effective documentation in the form of user help, guides, and references.

Benefits of Effective IT Documentation in DevOps

Here are some of the key benefits of IT documentation in DevOps.

Makes Processes More Transparent

Consider first that when you document your DevOps processes, they become more transparent for everyone involved. Internal documentation is vital for the healthy functioning of your software team, as users can access key information about configurations, specifications, and other technical aspects.

Improves Collaboration Between Development and Operations

Traditionally, development teams and operations teams have worked in siloes, resulting in clunky software decisions, with each team focusing on different priorities that fail to account for the needs of the end user. IT documentation makes priorities explicit, makes projects more visible, and therefore improves collaboration.

Increases Customer Satisfaction

When you document the product properly, customers are increasingly satisfied with the experience you deliver. Development and Operations are coordinated, so the development and delivery of code results in better products that also satisfy customers. IT documentation improves every aspect of software development.

Ensures the Product is Used as Intended

Specifically, customer-focused documentation increases the likelihood that the product is used as intended. When developers and operations personnel are on the same page, customers are more successful, and DevOps can achieve its objectives through appropriate documentation.

Key Features to Look for in IT Documentation Software

Now, we’ll examine the key features to look for in IT documentation software.

Centralized Documentation Repositories

When considering the appropriate IT documentation tool, the central feature is to have all of your documentation centralized in a repository to facilitate easy search and discovery. While documentation undoubtedly needs categorization and tagging, a central portal is essential for a great user experience.

Content Creation

You need the ability to create appropriate content with your IT documentation software, which means drafting articles and inserting relevant multimedia files like videos and images. Content creation is a process that needs to be fully supported by the software, enabling you to organize content into a hierarchy, add tags, and SEO.

Version Control and Collaboration

It’s very likely that you will run through multiple versions of your software documentation, and multiple authors will collaborate on its developments. Your software should be able to support version control, highlight changes and revert back to previous documents, as well as facilitate collaborators to review and edit each version.

Search

Once your documentation is published, you need to search through content to find the relevant information quickly. Advanced search enables users to narrow down their search parameters and sift through large numbers of documents easily. Search should be tolerant of typos and natural language.

Access Control

Different users need different permissions to access your documentation, and you might want to make it private for internal users or other special parties. Access control means that users might require a login, two-step verification, or be located at a particular IP address in order to view your content.

Integration

Integration with other tools can often be essential for your IT documentation software because you are likely working with other systems to develop documentation and help your users. Users don’t want to switch back and forth between different tools when the same process could be achieved with an automatic integration.

Security

You need to be sure that your data is tightly controlled and secure by the companies hosting your documentation, for the sake of both your DevOps team and your end users. It’s best to choose a vendor with a solid track record of privacy and security.

Factors to Consider When Choosing IT Documentation Software

Next, we’ll look at the top factors to consider when choosing your IT documentation software for your DevOps team.

Ease of Use

You’ll want to pick a software solution that’s easy to use to encourage adoption by your DevOps team. While some options will require more technical knowledge to learn than others, you can usually find a solution like Document360 that caters to different skill sets. Since DevOps goes hand-in-hand with agile methodologies, it’s imperative that you choose an IT documentation tool that your team can learn swiftly.

Setup Cost & Licensing Options

Different types of IT documentation software require various setup costs and licensing options, with the most accessible being a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model that you can license through a monthly subscription. Desktop installations require the biggest initial setup costs and local servers, so many companies opt for SaaS for their IT documentation software.

Also Read: How To Create a Software Installation Guide 

Security Features and Compliance

Most companies have specific requirements for security features and compliance, which is why it’s important to make sure your solution is compliant with security protocols and data privacy laws such as HIPAA and GDPR.

Support Services

Your software solution will be almost unusable without accompanying support services, which can include anything from onboarding to technical troubleshooting to ongoing product education. Make sure support services are part of your package; otherwise, you might be paying extra to outsource support to third parties.

Top IT Documentation Software Solutions for DevOps

At last, here are the top IT documentation software tools for DevOps as identified by us.

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Conclusion

When trying to support software development through DevOps, organizations need to make use of robust IT documentation tools to record processes, list technical details, and educate users, among other uses. That’s why Document360 is an absolutely outstanding choice for your documentation needs – you can get up and running fast and iteratively develop documentation based on feedback from customers as well as analytics data.

Choosing IT documentation software in line with DevOps principles is key to success since the term refers to a particular way of working for development and operations teams. While the change must happen culturally, teams can only progress with the right tools such as Document360, which helps them to create the necessary IT documentation.

What are Release Notes?

When a product is being continuously updated like SaaS, you need a way of letting customers know what has changed. Of course, they could just log into your product and find out for themselves but another way of doing it is to publish release notes. You can use special release notes software to publish your documentation or simply add them to your website.

Release notes usually contain the name of the software update and a description of its effects along with other important information, but we’ll be talking more about what to include in your release notes later.

You would typically let customers know which system version the update applies to, any new features, and whether they need to upgrade.

All in all, release notes are a great way to communicate the value of your product to customers and show them you are continuously developing it.

Importance of Release Notes in Software Development

We’re going to look at the importance of release notes in more detail.

Communication with Users

Release notes are an important way of communicating with users because they show exactly how the software system has changed. Customers may get a bit of a shock if they log into your software and find their favorite feature has been changed or removed. Release notes allow you to communicate how and why changes have happened.

Documentation and Historical Record

Updating your product is great but you need to record it as documentation to ensure everyone knows how the product has changed. For example, potential buyers of your software will be able to view the historical record to see how your product has evolved and understand that it’s under continuous improvement, showing that your team strives to meet the needs of its users.

User Adoption and Engagement

If you want to drive the adoption of a new feature, you need to make sure your users know about it. You keep users engaged if they know about new features and actively publish content that explains and promotes any changes. If users know why a particular feature can benefit them, they are more likely to adopt it and be retained with your product.

Feedback and Iterative Development

When you publish your release notes, you can solicit feedback from users about how they feel about the changes. Establishing an open dialogue brings your product closer to customers and allows you to engage in iterative development rather than risking future releases that damage your market share.

Transparency and Trust

Of course, with SaaS, product updates can be automatically rolled out without informing customers, but release notes help create transparency and trust. This is particularly important if you are phasing out a feature for some reason and reduces the likelihood of churn.

Support and Troubleshooting

In case there are bugs in your new release you have yet to fix, release notes can help with support and troubleshooting known issues, reducing the load on your customer support team. Customers understand that you are aware of any issues and are working to fix them instead of feeling that you are developing a shoddy product.

Collaboration within Development Teams

Development teams can collaborate with other departments, such as product and technical writers when it comes to publishing release notes. Release notes are beneficial for all of these teams since they are aimed at customers adopting the new features, which all parties have a stake in.

Legal and Compliance Requirements

While release notes are not mandatory, they can be important for legal and compliance requirements when updating your software for expanded use cases. Customers need to be assured of any risks inherent in using the new version of your software.

Components of Effective Release Notes

Now, we’ll take a look at everything you need to include ineffective release notes.

Version Information

Include the particular version your release applies to so users know whether the release note applies to them.

Release Date

For reference purposes, include the release date so users know when the release was made.

Clear and Concise Summary

To avoid users having to scroll through walls of text, include a clear and concise summary of the updates.

Detailed Change Log

Here, you can go into some more depth about the changelog, including how and why the changes were made, including any important technical details.

Writing Style and Tone

Although release notes are a formal document, you might still want to use a friendly style and tone to communicate your updates.

User Impact and Benefits

Users don’t always like change, so that’s why it’s helpful to include the user impact and benefits to explain why you made the updates. Focus on how the new updates will improve their lives and provide more value for money.

Links to Documentation and Support

You might have more extensive user guides and documentation you can link to, especially for complex changes that require more explanation, so be sure to include them, as well as the ability to contact your support team.

Visuals (Optional)

Including screenshots or other visuals can be a great way to bring your release notes to life and communicate changes to users, especially when demonstrating how to use a new feature.

Known Issues

Sometimes, you might have to release an update with known issues, in which case it’s best to inform your users for transparency in case they run into problems. Let them know you are working to fix them.

Feedback Mechanism

Provide a feedback mechanism such as a link to your email or community forum where users can express their opinions. Release notes should be part of an ongoing dialog where you take the feedback of your users seriously.

Prioritizing Information

Put the most important information first so your users have a chance to absorb it before they get bored! You can always link to more information later in case you have more to say but don’t want to overwhelm your users in the release notes.

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Writing Style and Tone of Release Notes

Aside from the basic information that you need to include in your release notes, you should be aiming for a particular style and tone in your documentation.

Audience-Centric Approach

Remember, it’s all about the user, so adopt an audience-centric approach when writing your release notes. This means focusing on the impact on the user, using language they will understand, and showing an appreciation of their perspective.

Clarity and Simplicity

Above all, keep it simple and clear. Users aren’t here to read a thesis concerning your software product but rather to access the necessary information in a straightforward manner. Remove unnecessary words and explanations in favor of brevity.

Positive and Encouraging Tone

Change is hard, and you should strive for a positive and encouraging tone when writing your release notes, emphasizing why the change is necessary and important. Embrace all your users and help them to adopt your new features.

Avoid Negative Language

On the other side of the coin, avoid negative language that makes your users feel discouraged. Don’t say anything like, “Unfortunately, we have had to discontinue this feature” as that makes users feel like they are missing out on something. Instead, you could try “We are taking our product in the following direction.”

Consistency

Reading release notes can be a bit of a chore, so make sure to maintain consistency in your documentation every time you publish a new update. When users know what to expect, including an easy-to-understand format, they are more likely to engage with your notes.

User-Centered Language

Make sure to use the language of your users when writing release notes to ensure they understand your explanation. If you refer to your feature internally as a “widget” but users know it as an “assistant”, you might create confusion if you don’t match users’ expectations.

Engagement and Excitement

Remember, release notes are not simply a dry document but an opportunity to get excited about new updates! Convey your excitement to your users and get them enthusiastic about trying new features and accomplishing more with the same product. Release notes showcase great value for money for your users.

User Benefits

Similarly, talking about the benefits of the new release creates a positive impression on your users. It’s unlikely you would change the product if they didn’t have a beneficial impact so communicate this when talking about your updates.

Avoid Over-Technical Details

For most audiences, overly technical details will be distracting and unnecessary. You know your users best and have a grasp of their technical proficiency, so try not to get bogged down in the details when explaining your updates. If you must use technical terms, consider whether to explain what they mean.

Transparency

The worst thing you can do is mislead your users in release notes. Be honest about changes that have been made, even if you fear negative feedback. By being upfront and transparent, users will be more likely to trust you and believe you are acting in their best interests.

Encouraging User Feedback

Even though user feedback isn’t always positive, you should encourage it in your release notes because documentation is part of a conversation. Including an email link or similar is a great opportunity to gather feedback about your new release and hear what users really think of the product.

3 Great Examples of Release Notes

Now, we’re going to look at five companies leading the way in the realm of release notes.

1. Document360

Document360 is a popular documentation and knowledge-based platform that helps organizations create, manage, and publish documentation effectively. To keep its users informed and to highlight continuous improvements and new features, Document360 regularly updates release notes. These release notes serve as a valuable resource for users, administrators, and developers, providing detailed information about updates, enhancements, bug fixes, and new functionalities.

2. Blackthorn

Blackthorn is a software product or application that is actively developed and maintained. To keep users, administrators, and stakeholders informed about the latest updates, enhancements, and bug fixes, the development team regularly publishes release notes. These release notes are essential in providing transparency, demonstrating the commitment to improvement, and ensuring users are aware of changes that may affect their usage of the software.

3. Serverless360

Serverless360 is a comprehensive platform for managing and monitoring serverless applications, such as those built on Microsoft Azure Functions, Logic Apps, and Service Bus. To keep its user base informed about the latest updates, feature enhancements, and bug fixes, the Serverless360 development team regularly publishes release notes. These release notes are crucial in providing transparency, demonstrating a commitment to improvement, and ensuring that users are aware of changes that might impact their use of the platform.

Challenges and Solutions in Release Notes

You may encounter some challenges when writing your release notes so now we present some solutions to common hurdles.

Balancing Detail with Brevity

Give your users as much detail as they need while keeping it short and simple. This could be achieved by breaking your release notes down and allowing users to skip to the features or updates that interest them.

Managing Expectations

New releases are exciting but make sure not to build up your users’ hopes too much. Let them know what they can achieve and whether they will need to upgrade to a higher plan to access benefits.

Handling Negative Feedback

Be graceful and appreciative even when you receive negative feedback. Release notes may stir up controversy as not everyone may like the changes you have made. Accept that being popular with some comes with the territory of continually evolving your product.

Communicating Technical Changes

Technical changes underpinning your software updates must be communicated clearly, especially if your product relies on APIs and similar functions. If your audience is developers, clearly communicate the new requirements and share specifications to avoid disrupting development activities.

Ensuring Accessibility

Your release notes should be accessible to everyone, including those with slow internet connections or impaired visibility. If you include images and videos, make sure the same information is also accessible through text.

Timely Release Notes

Don’t wait until weeks or months have passed before publishing your release notes. Try to time their publication with your software’s new release or you’ll leave your users confused and disappointed. If your release notes are late, acknowledge your tardiness and try to speed up in the future by prioritizing publication alongside releases.

Maintaining Consistency

Especially with more complex release notes, maintaining consistency is key. If users know what to expect, they will be more likely to engage and find out more about new updates. The best outcome you can hope for is when users look out for your quarterly updates in their inbox. Using a template is key when you have multiple contributors to your release notes.

Handling Complex Changes

When you have complex changes to communicate you can break them down into smaller chunks. Individually address each feature and issue you have tackled to ensure users don’t get overwhelmed.

Getting User Feedback

Users may not always be motivated to provide feedback but you can encourage more by acknowledging when feedback has spurred on new features and improvements. This shows you value user feedback and take it on board for your product roadmap.

Archiving and Cataloging Release Notes

Being able to look back at past release notes is important for prospective customers who want to see how your product has developed. Build an archive to show off the development process and catalog your release notes.

What Is documentation for testing?

You may be familiar with software testing, but what is testing documentation? Test documentation is defined as any documentation that is produced during the testing phase of the software development process, enabling the QA team to test the product and help fulfill requirements effectively.

Software test documentation refers to artifacts that may be produced before, during, and after the testing phase to enable successful testing. It includes records and plans for testing tasks that keep testers informed about the state of the software testing.

Test documentation enables testing teams to formulate a coherent plan for thoroughly testing a software product and systematically check all the boxes for designing tests, implementing tests and recording results.

Importance of documentation for testers and testing

Whether you are a C-level executive, developer, test engineer, QA analyst, or product team member, you must know about test documentation. Having internal documentation also facilitates seamless knowledge sharing within the team, ensuring everyone is on the same page and promoting collaboration for effective testing.

• Documentation should be part of your definition of done. For example, you shouldn’t be able to test a feature until it has the appropriate documentation. Test documentation is a vital part of that process, and receiving the correct documentation from the developers, such as a software requirements spec, is critical for effective testing.
• Test documentation eliminates much of the confusion and anxiety involved in the testing phase of your software product when your entire testing team has access to the appropriate documents. Testing teams understand what needs to be tested and have access to detailed plans of how the testing is intended to be executed.
• Test documentation saves time by clearly articulating the tasks that need to be completed by engineers, analysts, and so on. It prevents testing taking up more resources than it needs, and testers spend less time rehashing topics that have already been decided, improving overall test efficiency.
• You have a record of the changes that have been made to your software and any bugs that have resulted.
• New members of your team can get up to speed with the testing phase through access to comprehensive test documentation.
• Clients may require test documentation to arrive at the successful completion of the software project.

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What documentation do QA teams use?

The most frequently used artifacts used in test documentation are as follows:

Test case

A test case is a detailed description of the exact steps a tester needs to go through to evaluate the functionality of a particular feature, including the criteria for passing the test. Test cases result in standardization for different testers conducting the same software test.

Test plan

A test plan is a comprehensive overview of all the activities involved in the testing phase of the software development cycle. It includes the testing scope, scheduling, and resources to provide a high-level perspective for the QA team when conducting their work.

Test scenario

A test scenario clearly outlines the multiple methods of testing the software, which leads to individual test cases being developed. It involves identifying how the user could misuse the system and planning tests for those outcomes.

Test report

A record of the status of each test case that has been run so you can look back on the outcome of each test. The test report gives a broad overview of all the testing activities that have been performed, while a defect report records any feature in the software that fails to work as expected.

Checklist

A checklist is an alternative to a test case which provides a list of the software features that the tester needs to analyze, alongside a description of their functionality and the test outcome.

Bug report

One of the primary jobs of a tester is to search for bugs within the software, and a bug report is a log of any bugs identified alongside the process for how to recreate the bug.It includes details of the impact the bug will have on the system and recommendations for prioritizing it.

Requirements

Also known as a software requirements specification, the requirement is a full description of the functions and features of the software being built to ensure that all teams, including software, product and testing, are fully informed.

When can documentation be too much?

Though we have covered the main advantages of test documentation, a scenario can arise in which documentation is too much for your team. Firstly, it can be very time consuming to maintain the test documentation, which is time that could be spent on other tasks that are more critical to the software development process. Your testing team members may not be best deployed in writing documentation.

• If you don’t use professional writers, the documentation could be poorly written, making it hard for your testers to use the documents in their work and affecting the uptake of the documentation.
• Outdated documentation could create confusion among your test team and slow down the software development process. Inaccuracies can lead to errors and loss of faith in your testing team, who are struggling to fulfill their roles without relevant documentation.
• Finally, the cost of producing and maintaining the test documentation may outweigh its value in the organization, especially if the team uses it sparingly.

That being said, test documentation as a whole increases the chances of success for your testing team and the overall software development project, as long as you can avoid these common pitfalls.

Investing in just enough, rather than too much, documentation is key to an effective testing process.

Best practices for getting best results from documentation for testing

Here are some best practices for writing the best test documentation that performs well in practice.

• Use a knowledge base system as a single source of truth – you want your test documentation to be kept all in one place so every team member knows where to find your documents without wasting time searching. Without a single source of truth, team members may lose faith in the documentation or recreate documents needlessly.
• Keep your test documentation up-to-date in line with shifting requirements – it hardly needs to state that the requirements of a software product are constantly changing, so you’ll need to keep your test documentation in line with these shifts, to reflect the state of the software accurately.
• Keep your documentation private to protect sensitive information from being leaked – another advantage of using dedicated knowledge base software is that you can keep your documentation private, restricted only to your team. High levels of security are available to ensure that no unauthorized parties have access to your documents.
• Educate your team about the importance of test documentation – documentation will only work in your testing team if everyone involved is educated about the importance of documenting your activities. Creating, maintaining, and using documentation are all vital aspects of developing a thriving documentation culture.
• Regularly prune your test documentation for relevancy – documentation gets better results when you frequently remove documents that are no longer useful so that your testing team and other stakeholders get the maximum benefit from the documentation.
• Only document what is directly related to your testing activities – documentation that is too comprehensive ends up being unwieldy and less than useful to your testers. Only document the core activities of your testing team to ensure that each document has a purpose.
• Avoid treating documenting as a box-checking exercise – when your testing team only documents in order to fulfill requirements, it becomes an uninspiring box-checking exercise that feels like a waste of time. Clearly articulate the business-critical reason for documenting and your team will be more motivated.
• Follow a style guide to ensure consistency across documentation – documentation must be consistent across the company no matter who is writing it, and for that you need a style guide that everyone adheres to.
• Make use of version control to track the documentation – opt for a system that keeps track of different versions of your documentation so you always know what changes have been made and by whom. Version control shows how your documentation has changed over time and allows you to revert back if necessary.

Also, Check out our article on Documentation version control

Understanding Prompt Engineering

The term prompt engineer may be slightly misleading, and some experts in the field have argued for “prompt specialist”, though this has not caught on yet. If you are a prompt engineer, you will be working with writing text-based prompts to feed into AI tools (such as ChatGPT) to create specific and accurate outputs.

Prompt engineers are concerned with creating content for technical products, working with complex information to make it clear and easy to understand. Writing is still vitally important, but prompt engineers use AI to create technical documents that would otherwise be more difficult to achieve.

Prompt engineers are likely to work in healthcare, technology, and engineering, just like more traditional technical writers. The emphasis is on crafting the prompts to control the output, which requires an understanding of AI models to ensure technical writers are inputting the right prompts.

Technical writers who work with prompt engineering must be able to teach the AI to learn from the prompts and become more accurate.

Essential Skills and Background for Prompt Engineering

There are a few specific skills that technical writers will require if they are to succeed in prompt engineering.

Language Model Knowledge

Prompt engineers need to have a knowledge and understanding of language models to be able to craft their prompts to generate specific text outputs. They don’t necessarily need to understand the mechanics behind the model but simply the principles governing it so they can effectively utilize it to create engaging and human-sounding technical documentation.

Programming Language Knowledge

Knowledge of programming language is not essential, but it certainly helps when it comes to prompt engineering. Python is a popular language that is used with prompt engineering to interact with APIs and manipulate data in order to make prompts more effective and accurate. Python works particularly well with ChatGPT to create prompts that generate highly specific outputs, and luckily many technical writers are already familiar with Python.

Hands-On Experience with AI and ML Technologies

You absolutely must have experience with AI and ML technologies, such as ChatGPT, published by OpenAI in 2022. Being able to work with and manipulate these technologies is a crucial part of the role of prompt engineers who want to create technical documentation. Since prompt engineering deals directly with AI, technical writers must seek out projects that use these technologies to become successful prompt engineers.

Understanding the Basics of Content Creation

The technical content created by AI tools due to prompts is unlikely to be the final product, especially since documentation must conform to specific standards and technical specifications. Working documentation still must be tested and approved before it can be released to customers or users, and prompt engineers must understand the principles of content creation to be successful. Content cannot be divorced from its human creators and rather supplemented by AI.

Ability to Work within Limited Timeframes

Even with the awesome power of AI behind you, you’ll still need to work within limited timeframes to create content to a deadline. Products can’t be shipped without appropriate documentation, and you’ll often be working just behind the pace of the engineering team. Since LLMs will be so integral to the process, project leads may expect even tighter deadlines than they would if you were simply creating documentation manually.

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3 Best Tools for Prompt Engineering

Here are the three best tools for prompt engineering that we know of.

Document360

Document360 is Knowledge base software that uses AI to recommend tags and SEO descriptions for your documentation. This means that as you write the natural articles for your knowledge base, Document360 provides the metadata and SEO to enable users to discover your pages more easily.

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ChatGPT

ChatGPT is one of the most popular tools used for prompt engineering which Microsoft is now integrating into all of their enterprise tools. ChatGPT caused a sensation when it was released in 2022 by generating highly natural-sounding human-like responses to a variety of prompts.

GitHub

GitHub is an AI-powered development platform that enables you to turn natural language prompts into code suggestions. This makes writing, testing and publishing your code much easier as you can use a feature trained on billions of lines of code, called GitHub Copilot.

Conclusion

Technical writers who take the time to learn prompt engineering may not only stay current with the latest technologies but also make themselves more employable. Being able to save time and produce more comprehensive documentation means you can help more users with fewer resources.
Technical writers are already “technical” in this traditional sense, and already using supporting technologies in their workflows. Generative AI provides opportunities to use existing skills to create highly informative content which is then reviewed by experts – technical writers.

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What is User Manual Software?

A user manual software is a tool that helps you create, manage, and deliver user manuals, guides, and documentation for your product. Some of the benefits of user manual tools include specialized features for content creation, editing, version control, customizable templates, and collaboration tools.

These user manual tools support the entire manual creation process, allowing you to design content based on your specific need and want. You can also enhance your user manuals by incorporating visual elements such as images, GIFs, screenshots, and videos.

Things to Consider While Choosing a User Manual Software

When choosing online user manual tools, there are several factors to consider to ensure you select one that properly aligns with your product requirements and needs. Some of these include ease of use, customization, analytics, search functionality, and other collaboration features.

Less to No Code Requirement

Choosing an online user manual tool that requires minimal to no coding knowledge or expertise is a game changer, especially in today’s fast-paced digital world. Searching for a platform that simplifies creating and customizing your user manuals without diving into complex codes is important.

This also encourages collaboration within your team since everyone can contribute, and maintain the documentation regardless of their technical proficiency.

Powerful Search Engine

A robust search engine is one of the most important functionalities to look out for in your user manual software. It ensures users can navigate the documentation easily and find answers to their queries independently.

Choosing a user manual tool that provides helpful features like predictive search suggestions, filters, and keyword highlighting enhances the user’s search experience.

Ease of Use

Usability greatly influences how beneficial your user manual will be to your user. It’s no news that an intuitive and user-friendly interface precedes flashy aesthetics when selecting the ideal online user manual software.

Prioritizing easy navigation can help your users troubleshoot the issues they face independently and improve accessibility, reducing the burden on your support team. Consider software with drag-and-drop functionality and WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editors for effective documentation management and to reduce the learning curve for your team.

Analytics

Choose online user manual tools that provide useful insights into user interactions with your manuals. These analytics capabilities should include popular search queries, user engagement data, and user behavior within the documentation.

This provides the data to identify areas needing better clarification and helps you continuously improve your user manuals.

Integrations

The ability of your online user manual tool to integrate with other applications and workflows plays a crucial role in ensuring an efficient operational process. You can easily integrate your existing project management tools, version control systems, and customer support platforms, providing more streamlined processes.

How Can a User Manual Tool Improve Customer Experience?

If your goal is to prioritize customer satisfaction, then it’s vital for you to work with online user manual tools. They also reduce the cost of support since customers are able to easily understand and navigate the user guides and carry out quick troubleshooting. All these results in self-reliant and satisfied users.

Reduce Support Dependency

User manual tools empower users to find solutions to their queries independently. An accessible user manual means users can gain information and consult the manual quickly for necessary answers.

In turn, the self-service approach saves time and helps to reduce the cost and reliance on support. You can efficiently allocate resources for support and streamline your business operations while enhancing overall customer satisfaction.

Ease of Use and Understanding

User manual software helps you create documentation that is easy to understand, ensuring clear language, initiative interfaces, and structured content. You can create user manuals that are user-friendly and easy to navigate.

These tools help simplify complex technical concepts, making it easy for users to comprehend and use the information in the manuals. This reduces user frustration, boosts confidence, and enhances overall customer satisfaction.

Quick Troubleshooting

Using these user manual tools ensures easy troubleshooting through comprehensive guides and solutions. With this, users can quickly locate answers to common issues and resolve these problems independently.

Swift troubleshooting and problem resolution leave your customers satisfied and have an overall positive perception of your product or service. It also means they can explore and utilize various functionalities of your product, leading to a lower churn rate.

Efficiency Onboarding

Another benefit of user manual tools is that they improve your onboarding process by providing detailed and properly structured documentation to accelerate the learning curve for new users. In addition, you can access valuable resources like the Customer Service Training Manual by Document360 to gain insights into efficient onboarding practices.

The availability of these comprehensive resources enables a seamless transition into being a proficient user of your product or service. Efficient onboarding also creates a positive user experience, increasing loyalty and long-term engagement.

Visual Aids

Online user manual tools easily incorporate visual elements such as images, screenshots, videos, diagrams, etc. This simplifies complex concepts and instructions, making it easy for users to follow stepwise instructions, understand information, and troubleshoot quickly.

Visual aids also make your user manual more appealing to your users than having documentation filled with text. The process becomes seamless when users can see the instructions they are to carry out.

AI Generates & User Manual Tools: Can They Go Hand-in-hand?

A combination of generative AI technology and user manual tools will ensure enhanced quality and effectiveness of user guides. The integration of generative AI streamlines the content creation process by generating vast amounts of text quickly, saving time and effort.

This is vital in creating detailed user manuals of complex products or software as it ensures the user guide is comprehensive enough by explaining all features and functionalities thoroughly. Unlike static content, AI-generated content is more interactive by generating responses and explanations based on the context of the user’s inquiry.

While exploring how to choose user-manual tools, it’s essential to recognize that while combining generative AI with user-manual software offers numerous benefits, you must also ensure it aligns seamlessly with your brand and product requirements.

Best Online User Manual Tools

Now, let’s explore top online user manual tools that simplify documentation creation and enhance customer experience. We’ll consider how well they can streamline documentation, improve user onboarding, structure content, and other publishing functionalities they can help better your user manuals.

1. Document360

Document360 is a Knowledge base platform with a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface that simplifies user manual creation and management. Its WYSIWYG editor ensures you can see how your content will be displayed for users, making editing and task formatting much easier.

The software offers an in-built Markdown editor, which provides a text-centric approach ideal for creating user manuals. Its version control system lets you easily track changes and keep your user documentation up-to-date.

You can integrate other third-party tools and platforms, such as Microsoft Teams, Zendesk, Drift, and Google Analytics, for better collaboration and seamless workflow. It also provides support for translation that allows you to seamlessly create multilingual user manuals to cater to a global audience.

2. ClickHelp

ClickHelp is a documentation and authoring software with many features and an intuitive user interface, making it accessible to a wide range of users, including those who don’t have advanced technical skills.

With the single-sourcing feature on ClickHelp, you can create multiple versions of your content and reuse it efficiently across various documents and manuals. This streamlines content management, ensuring consistency and reducing redundancy in your user manuals.

The full-text search feature simplifies information retrieval for your users. It enables them to perform quick and comprehensive searches throughout the manual, easily finding the exact information they need.

3. Notion

Notion is another popular knowledge management tool that offers various features to help individuals and businesses create and manage documentation. It allows you to collaborate on projects, save information, and properly structure your content.

There’s a customizable workspace where you can create pages, tables, and databases to structure your documentation per your needs. This flexibility means you can organize your user manual with various sections, categories, and topics.

You can also add visual elements, texts, links, and videos to create a rich user manual with diverse content. The notion also simplifies their sharing functionality, allowing you to share user manuals with clients and stakeholders. There are options to create shareable links and control access permission.

4. Helpdocs

Creating and organizing user manuals with Helpdocs is a breeze! It’s a Knowledge base software with a straightforward and accessible interface. One standout feature of helpdocs is its knowledge base templates with pre-designed layouts and structures, allowing you to organize your content into categories, articles, and sections.

Helpdocs’s SEO-focused templates follow best SEO practices, ensuring that your content is optimized for search engines and easily discoverable by users. There’s also the flexibility to customize your templates using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, fine-tuning the appearance and functionality of your user manuals to match your user experience requirements.

5. Paligo

Paligo provides specialized features that help improve your user manual creation and management process. The structured authoring environment allows you to create and organize your documentation into chapters and sections, establishing content hierarchy.

The platform offers an easy-to-use XML editor that simplifies editing and management of structured content even for users with limited technical expertise. Paligo also offers translation tools that make creating manuals in multiple languages easy, helping you reach a global audience and localizing the user experience.

6. Nuclino

Nuclino offers a unique approach to knowledge management by streaming documentation processes and providing a platform for collaboration. One key feature Nuclino offers is its real-time collaboration options, where multiple users can work on the same document simultaneously. This makes it an ideal choice if your organization has complex documentation needs.

You can seamlessly integrate multimedia elements, including images, code blocks, embeds, and videos, into your user manuals, making your documentation more comprehensive and catering to diverse learning preferences.

Another standout feature is its organization system, where you create sections and arrange content to have hierarchies. It provides a well-structured layout for your online user manual, making it easy for users to find the information they need.

7. Gitbook

Gitbook is a versatile documentation platform offering a range of features catering to individuals and teams. Multiple team members can collaborate on documentation like user manuals simultaneously, creating room for real-time updates and effective teamwork.

A key feature of Gitbook is its structured authoring environment, where you can organize your documentation into sections, subsections, and chapters, providing a clear structure for user manuals.

Gitbook’s version control system ensures that users can track changes made to the documentation. This simplifies review processes, making locating edits and reverting to previous versions easy.

8. KnowledgeOwl

KnowledgeOwl is documentation built with distinctive features, such as its intuitive content organization system to make creating and organizing content easier. The platform offers advanced analytics features, providing insights into user engagement. Beyond basic metrics, KnowledgeOwl provides data on which article users find most helpful.

The search functionality comes with instant search suggestions, which means as a user starts typing their queries, it suggests relevant articles. This helps users find information faster and reduces frustration.

In addition, KnowledgeOwl has a user-friendly interface that requires little to no technical expertise. It’s ideal for organizations and individuals looking for a straightforward tool to effectively create and manage user manuals.

9. Dozuki

Dozuki is an online manual software tailored to industrial processes and training manuals. It focuses on helping organizations create well-detailed documentation to facilitate employee training, particularly in industries with complex procedures and processes.

The software offers version control features that allow you to manage all the versions of your documentation processes precisely. It ensures you can track manual changes as the documentation evolves.

Dozuki allows you to set access controls at a granular level to control who views, edits, and approves content. This customization level ensures that sensitive information stays secure and only authorized can access critical documentation.

10. Stonly

Stonly is a modern user manual software that excels in creating personalized and interactive user manuals and documentation. Its robust search system is designed to deliver targeted results, ensuring users can find information quickly.

Thanks to Stonly’s user-friendly interface and intuitive editor, you can set up the software easily, which makes it accessible to both individuals and businesses for their documentation needs. Stonly also has a universal widget that helps with customer onboarding, feature adoption, and product setup.

Additionally, Stonly allows you to create personalized product tours that adapt to customer actions and ensures users receive guidance tailored to their unique interactions with the product. To gauge customer satisfaction and gather feedback, Stonly integrates NPS (Net Promoter Score) surveys, enabling businesses to improve their user guides and support materials.

11. Scribe

Scribe is another automated documentation tool that simplifies the creation of stepwise guides and user manuals. Once you set up the Scribe extension, you only need to navigate through your workflow and product’s features. Scribe automatically generates user guides with clear instructions and screenshots using your provided content.

The platform also supports collaboration by allowing multiple team members to work together on the user manual or other documentation. This ensures the documentation stays updated even in dynamic team settings.

Other features of Scribe include drag-and-drop editor multimedia integration and more.

What is Dev Team Communication and Why is it Important?

Development team communication is exchanging information between different team members for effective collaboration. Teams can only work towards a common goal if they are well-practiced in communicating, sharing ideas, explaining decisions, etc.

Dev team communication could include email, instant messages, video conferencing, chat, or face-to-face meetings. What’s critically important is that the outcomes of these interactions be properly documented so that team members can look back on what has been discussed.

Ask more insightful questions

When you ask better questions, you are more likely to elicit open answers that reveal information you might never have heard. The best questions don’t anticipate the response but probe more intensely to get to the heart of the matter. In software development teams, exploring ideas means you can develop more innovative products.

Being able to share and develop your ideas means that teams work together better intensely, and exchanging questions is a big part of that. You can even ask questions about the documentation by commenting on the articles in your knowledge base tool, so the documentation is never static.

Plan more successfully

To move fast, you must be good at planning; creating robust documentation is all part of planning. You can build software products that meet your users’ specifications and needs when you record and document your ideas, decisions, and aims.

Communication happens within the meetings to develop your products and when team members are looking back on what has been done. In agile, you may be tempted to make a change to the software but look back and realize there was a good reason why you didn’t implement that feature in the first place.

Implement agile remotely

As we’ve already touched on, many teams are not only following Agile but also working remotely. Good communication is vital for making this style of working viable as you deal with fast-paced change and the need for face-to-face interaction. Documentation, in particular, can help those who weren’t present when a decision was made stay up-to-date on iterations.

Regular scrum meetings may result in decisions made without certain team members’ presence, so documentation still enables absent team members to participate. Sense checking can be more accessible when there is a document that explains decisions that were taken in meetings.

Improve code reviews

It’s easy to think when you’re writing code that you’ll remember exactly why you made a particular decision, but future-you may end up scratching your head when asked to explain the thinking behind your code. To prepare successfully for code reviews, it’s worth documenting your efforts so you can refer back to them later when asked to account for what you’ve done.

This is especially important when you consider that not all code is immediately self-explanatory. There may have been system requirements that determined your decision to program in a certain way that could be clearer to a reviewer.

Benefits of Technical Documentation for Communication

Considering the importance of dev team communication, we will look more closely at the benefits of technical documentation.

Bridging communication gaps and reducing misunderstandings

When teams are working remotely in an agile model, changes happen fast. Bridging the communication gaps means you can move more swiftly and reduce the potential for misunderstandings. Documentation helps you do this by including team members who could not be part of the decision-making process and enabling you to reflect on your work.

Improving project efficiency, consistency, and scalability

Without technical documentation, you will likely have the same redundant conversations and debate the same points. To improve project efficiency, consistency, and scalability, you need effective documentation to enable the free flow of information. Your team members won’t have to repeat themselves when information has been documented.

Structuring documentation for easy navigation and comprehension

When you use high-performance knowledge base software like Document360, you can ensure your documentation is easy to navigate and comprehend. When the user experience is positive, you can ensure your developers adopt your knowledge base and work from the same playbook.

This is a far superior approach to storing your documentation across different systems, in which case developers would need help knowing where to look first for answers. One system supported by a powerful search is enough to make the documentation experience more viable.

Challenges in Creating Technical Documentation for Communication

Even though it’s clear to see the immense value in technical documentation for development teams, it’s you’ll likely meet a few roadblocks in your haste to document everything.

Addressing resistance to documentation and promoting its value within the team

As we’ve already mentioned, developers may only accept documentation if they see its value within the team. When your high-performing technical team members are pressed for time, they usually write code instead of documenting their activities.
But it’s important to remember that technical documentation can often prevent developers from having to rewrite code because there is transparency and clarity throughout the process. The document once and avoid rework should be your programming approach.

Avoiding excessive documentation that hinders productivity

That being said, there sometimes comes a time when documentation can become a beast all of its own, and developers are spending more time maintaining documentation than implementing productive work.

This can happen when documentation becomes part of the specifications for the project and ceases to be beneficial to anybody. Agile methodologies attempt to combat this pitfall by only documenting what is necessary.

Dealing with outdated or poorly maintained documentation

Documentation becomes more of a hindrance than a help when outdated or poorly maintained. Developers may consult the documentation, but it leads them down the wrong path because it contains inaccurate information that obstructs communication.

The value of a knowledge base tool like Document360 is its versioning feature, in which you can keep track of who has made updates to the documentation and revert to desired versions. This makes it much easier to maintain documentation and keep it relevant.

Balancing documentation efforts with agile development practices

Since the launch of the Agile manifesto, developers have subscribed to this value: “Working software over comprehensive documentation,” which is the second point on the list.

The statement’s true meaning is that working software is more important than comprehensive documentation, but that in no way implies that documentation has no value. It will always have a place as long as documentation supports the agile methodology.

Also, Check out our article on Document Collaboration Tips

Best Practices to Enhance Communication with the Development Team

You can follow these best practices to ensure that you can achieve better communication within your development team.

Encouraging collaboration through shared documentation repositories and version control systems

Firstly, encourage your team to collaborate using a shared documentation repository like a knowledge base. This is a dedicated system for your documentation in which your team will always know they can look if they want to find information about your software.

Version control means you can keep track of changes made so that multiple parties can collaborate on the documentation without fear of conflict. Work is always preserved because you can revert to the previous version. Leveraging documentation as a reference for onboarding new team members.

Onboarding new team members in an agile environment means they must get up to speed fast. There will be little tolerance for newbies who continually ask obvious questions about the software. Still, a great solution to this issue is the presence of thorough documentation as a reference point.

If trainees need clarification on an aspect of the software, they can consult the documentation first and become empowered through their learning. Documentation improves the developer experience through streamlining onboarding.

Using documentation to streamline code reviews and ensure adherence to standards

Documentation that makes the decisions behind your code more explicit enables you to streamline code reviews with less back-and-forth and the ability to create more confidence in your programming. Code reviews are a collaborative process, so involving other reviewers in your decisions through documentation is a great way to respect their time.

Documenting best practices, design decisions, and project-specific guidelines

The best thing about documentation is you can use it to document anything. You can document best practices within your team, explain design decisions, and record project-specific guidelines that ensure every team member is on the same page.
Communication between developers, managers, the design team, and the product team is enhanced when you document important aspects of the project.

Get the developers’ involvement during the planning stage

It may be your product team’s responsibility to develop a great product, but you want to get the developers involved as early as possible so they can tell you what is feasible.

Features that may seem highly desirable for your customers, in theory, may not work in practice, and thorough documentation of the reasoning behind these decisions means your team won’t be going around in circles.

Use effective project management and communication tools

Using the right tools is vitally important if you want project management and communication to be successful. There are a plethora of tools out there for you to choose from, but only certain tools may be right for your business.

The popularity of a tool may not be effective for your developers’ own particular workflows, and choosing the right knowledge base may come down to whether it has certain features that you need for writing useful documentation.

What is a Technical Writer Style Guide?

As a technical writer, you must write in an unbiased and straightforward tone. Therefore, technical writing style guides serve as rules that define the specific structure, format, and tone used in your technical document. These also cover punctuation, references, terminologies, abbreviations, spelling, and grammar. While an organization could adopt a specific style guide, there are broad examples of technical writer style guides that are acceptable across various industries.

These style guides are also specific on the types of text to avoid and the best way to include images in your technical document. One of the most significant benefits of adopting technical writing guidelines is that these templates ultimately help you write more clearly. This is helpful for both the readers and writers who work on similar content styles daily.

Using the style guide, you can define the style to adopt in various forms of technical communication, including procedural writing and user manuals. Overall, this is a fantastic way to present your written content with more professionalism while complying with the ethical and legal requirements of being a technical writer.

6 Technical Writing Style Guide Examples

Various companies have adopted style guides that are useful internally among employees and externally for other brands that would love to adopt this for their technical writers. These technical writing style guide examples give you a direct insight into the best formatting styles for various technical documents.

• Google developer style guide

Image Source: Google developer style guide

The Google developer style guide provides technical writing guidelines for writing concise, detailed Google-related developer documentation. These guidelines ensure technical writers create conversational, respectful, and friendly content without jargon. Organizing your content correctly is very important, especially if you’re dealing with lots of information, and that’s where the Google developer style guide comes in.

This style guide has an introductory section that teaches the basics, and the next section explains the format in detail. Other areas cover information on relevant images, formatting, tone, punctuation, and grammatical issues. This guide also covers the documentation’s methods for linking external sources, including guidelines for linking headings, URLs to images, and cross-references.

• Microsoft writing style guide

Image Source: Microsoft writing style guide

This style guide contains many examples to help you see what works and what doesn’t with technical writing. The tricky sections, such as those about grammar, include specific examples, which is just the right amount of depth to give technical writers a complete picture of how to communicate effectively with their target audience. Direct comparisons in specific sections like headers and tones make it easy to grasp information.

• Apple-Style Guide

Image Source: Apple style guide

Looking for a streamlined technical style guide that helps technical writers give readers the information they need without overwhelming them with excess? The Apple Style guide uses drop-downs to keep the information as streamlined and straightforward as possible. There are lots of features responsible for the success of this style guide. One of them is the section dedicated to encouraging writers to avoid the use of oppressive words and stereotypes. The guide, which helps technical writers format materials such as training programs and instructional materials, promotes diversity and inclusivity. The updates page is also strategically placed to make it easy for visitors to stay updated on any changes.

• Mailchimp Content Style Guide

Image Source: Mailchimp style guide

The first thing you would notice about the Mailchimp content style guide is how much of a goldmine it is for specific guidelines on formatting content. This style guide has a section dedicated to guidelines on educational content, as they deal with many materials in this category. Therefore, their policies provide general information on formatting for text and headlines, which non-Mailchimp users can adapt to provide educational resources to their target audience. Some sections cover legal content, formatting for popular social media platforms, and email newsletters.

• Digital Ocean Technical Writing Guidelines

Image Source: Digital Ocean Technical Writing Guidelines

Reading the Digital Ocean technical writing guidelines gives you an instant guide to everything you need to know about writing technical content for this brand. It is a comprehensive technical document covering company-specific terminologies, writing for different experience levels, and providing technically accurate information. Therefore, this single-page guideline covers formatting, structure, and style for writing technical articles such as procedural tutorials.

• GitLab API style guide

Image Source: Gitlab API style guide

The GitLab team and community use this API style guide, which is constantly updated to incorporate industry changes. It covers writing structure, links, and other formatting guidelines for implementing, troubleshooting, and using the product. A huge plus is the incorporation of the Microsoft and Google style guides which address different aspects of technical document creation for effective communication. The GitLab API style guide defines various rules across various topics, including using active voice for seamless writing presentation.

What forms of content can be written Using Technical Writer Style Guides?

Traditional technical documents are written with a technical audience in mind, such as machine repair manuals, owner manuals, developer guides, and maintenance manuals. However, technical writing is a broader concept. Therefore, we can divide technical writing style guides into five categories:

• Technical marketing content: These include catalogs, press releases, advertisements, and promotional brochures. These contents are majorly for brand promotion and communication with their customer base.
• Field service support: Technical documents such as technical and training support guides can be written by using technical writer style guides. These are useful when the writer intends to help technical workers understand maintenance, administration, and software installation procedures.
• End-user documentation: Use style guides for technical documents such as patient information booklets and user manuals to present detailed how-to information.
• Organizational document: Examples of these are sales proposals, marketing proposals, funding proposals, and business plans. This represents a category of technical papers focused on defining deliverables within an organization and helping stakeholders identify the strengths and weaknesses of the process toward achieving their objectives.
• Technical specification documents: Technical documents such as software development and product prototype guides contain technical specifications to provide developmental support to the target audience. Style guides will help you analyze information obtained from experts and present this in easy-to-understand chunks.

Other examples of technical documents include:

• Product knowledge base: Consumers need quick solutions to any issues they encounter while using products. A knowledge base answers their questions in detail and is always available to consumers without the need to contact customer support through a longer process.
• Case studies and whitepapers: Case studies and whitepapers are relevant for organizational research and development. This official document promotes product features and use cases to help readers understand the product enough to solve possible issues.
• Policy guidelines: Companies require guidelines that contain policies that guide engagement between employees and the company. These rules and regulations can be written by technical writers using a style guide.
• API documentation: API documentation helps developers to use and understand how to integrate APIs into their software applications. Style guides ensure accuracy and clarity while improving the API developer experience.

What Are the Key Benefits of Using Technical Writing Style Guides?

Using the best technical style guide to help you create amazing content comes with many key benefits, including time-saving, consistency, improvements in technical communication, and the spread of easily consumable content.

• Saves Time

What happens if you don’t put together a proper schedule to help you navigate different tasks for the day? The apparent result is that you won’t have a clear direction and may end up achieving nothing substantial during your working hours. However, when tasks are properly outlined before starting your day, you achieve more within a specific timeframe, similar to what technical writing style guides do for technical writers. Technical writing style guides help you save a lot of time because it contains all the relevant style and formatting guidelines to help you get the best results with minimal effort. This means you can create high-quality documentation within an impressive timeframe. In contrast, the end-users needing this documentation won’t have to spend so much time searching for relevant information. Everyone benefits.

• Brings Consistency

Suppose your company adopts one of the technical style guide examples discussed earlier in this article. In that case, it becomes valid company-wide, meaning every technical writer within the establishment will use that style. This becomes adopted as the brand’s voice, easily identifiable by end-users since everyone formats documentation similarly.

The advantage of this is consistency, as customers will be willing to interact with your brand across multiple channels when they see that your content is consistent. Consistent brand messaging improves your profile and exudes professionalism, showing you care about communicating clearly with your customers.

• Improves Technical Communication

Communication is successful when a message is sent to a receiver and correctly interpreted without issues. Miscommunication arises with vague language or a style the receiver needs to become more familiar with. Since technical communication can be internal or external, adopting specific technical writing guidelines that fit your company’s image will leave little to no room for miscommunication.

Therefore, a key benefit of style guides is improving technical communication. For example, internal memos with style guides will contain relevant company terminologies that ensure the memos are interpreted accordingly.

• It makes the content easily consumable.

No one likes technical content that is neither here nor there. Style guides contain specific formats for grammatical expressions, tone, the use of headings, and so much more which helps technical writers to convey information in friendly chunks for maximum readability. Consumers are likelier to read content from start to finish when it’s presented in a style that’s easy to digest and addresses their pain points with simple language. This makes it easy to skim, as you can scan the document.

Use Document360 to create and maintain a style guide

Document360 provides a flexible and secure content management system that makes creating and maintaining a style guide for technical documentation easy. With this top-notch knowledge base platform, content writers can access state-of-the-art editors to write release notes, how-to guides, and press releases and create a style guide of the SaaS knowledge base.

What Is Documentation Testing?

Documentation testing is the process of testing the usability of the product documentation and its efficacy in helping users complete certain tasks. Testing involves finding out whether the documentation you have created to accompany your product is fit-for-purpose and easy to use, resulting in a highly desirable user experience.

Just like product testing, documentation involves recruiting actual users as well as subject matter experts and usability professionals. The documentation team, led by the technical writer, identifies whether the documentation is suitable for its users. Usability testing requires having a working prototype of the documentation which you will then present to your users for analysis.

Even if you conduct usability testing on the documentation, you still need to follow up on action points. For example, if you analyzed whether users were able to successfully use a certain feature after consulting the documentation, if the users fail to succeed then your documentation needs some work. Then you need to test it again after changes have been made to check whether usability has been achieved.

Why Is Documentation Testing Important?

Customers striving to use your products often need high-quality documentation to succeed. Enabling customers to use a self-service model of product help leads to fewer support tickets submitted and more satisfied customers overall. Documentation testing ensures that your content is fit for purpose and that customers will be able to learn and adopt your products without technical support.

When support tickets are reduced or eliminated, your company saves on support expenses and are then able to focus on more revenue-generating activities. You also lose fewer customers due to failure to adopt the product, which is directly tied to revenue. Better documentation means that even less technical users can become competent with your product, widening your potential customer base.

Sometimes usable documentation is also tied to legal or medical concerns, in which case you will not be able to release your product until your document complies with regulations. Usability testing is a vital step of this process in which you ensure that your company has checked all the boxes.

If you find that a product is hard to document, you might find it throws up all sorts of errors with the product itself which affect your usability. Documentation testing should be conducted early in the product development phase to guard against these kinds of outcomes, and leave time for refining the product before release.

What to Test in Technical Documentation/Technical documentation Testing Checklist

How to Test Technical Documentation Usability?

Best Practices for Testing Documentation

Test with Real Users

Before you conduct your documentation usability testing, you should have a clear picture of who your documentation is aimed at. Real users are unlikely to have prior knowledge of your product so testing with them is vital. Insiders from the company often have valuable insight but your documentation must be targeted at real users, in order to see how your documentation will play out in real life.

Leave Enough Time for Testing

In the rush to get a product ready for market, documentation often gets left on the backburner. Make sure your definition of complete is reached only after you have conducted documentation testing, and not before. All teams should be educated on the importance of testing the documentation, without which the product risks being a failure with its target users.

Analyze Your Results

Have a system for analyzing the results of your documentation testing. This means that when you receive your results, you should effectively apply the feedback you collect to make positive changes. Don’t be disheartened if users find your documentation difficult to use – you have learned something for next time.

Know What You Want to Aim for

When testing your documentation, you need to have a goal for your content so you can recognize when you have reached it. One example of a goal might be making your documentation more accessible for your users. When you know what you want to aim for, you will be able to select tests that provide relevant insight into your progress.

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is a language model that has been launched by the Artificial Intelligence organization OpenAPI, which develops AI technology for the benefit of humanity and adopts a human-centered approach.

GPT stands for Generative Pre-trained Transformer, and the tool is a chatbot that has the ability to interact in a conversational style. When you talk to ChatGPT, it will respond much as a human would and can be used to generate text documents such as those that would be useful in technical writing.

As a chatbot, ChatGPT is essentially a writing tool that can help writers to generate high-quality content that has been informed by a huge range of sources from the internet. Not only does ChatGPT understand questions, but it can form responses that have a creative element that simulates human intelligence.

Amazingly, ChatGPT also has the ability to debug code if you enter a question and code snippet that is not working correctly. ChatGPT will interact with you in a conversational mode to find the reason for the error and provide suggestions for fixing it.

How to use it

One way that you could use ChatGPT to help with your technical writing is by asking it a question, and ChatGPT will generate an answer that you can use as the basis of a technical article. ChatGPT will scan massive amounts of data (up to the year 2021) , which you can adapt to your own particular specifications. If you have writer’s block, ChatGPT is an excellent way to overcome this hurdle and provide you with a starting point.

Another way to use ChatGPT is to optimize your content for SEO. You can ask ChatGPT to search for keywords related to a particular topic and use them as a structure for your article, which will help to get more visibility for content on search engines. ChatGPT’s applications for SEO are important because technical writers want users to find their documentation when searching online.

It’s not strictly related to technical writing, but you can also use ChatGPT to write poems or short stories. ChatGPT has the capability to be creative and even have a philosophical discussion with you, so that’s why it’s generating so much interest among its user base. The ability to use ChatGPT for different purposes is limited only by your imagination, but at the end of the day, it is still only Artificial Intelligence.

Limitations

So at the moment, ChatGPT cannot be used for writing technical manuals, so technical writers can rest assured that they are still essential in their jobs. The limitation of ChatGPT is that it can only regurgitate information that it has already read in the past and that the skill of creating truly original content still belongs to humans. Highly specific technical documentation is still the preserve of technical writers who have domain knowledge.

Similarly, ChatGPT is still prone to responding with some inaccuracies regarding questions that are asked of it, and OpenAPI is working on a way to overcome this hurdle. While ChatGPT can currently simulate human intelligence, it remains limited by the fact that it is a machine.

How to use ChatGPT for Technical Writing?

To use ChatGPT in technical writing, you must first use your Google account to sign up. ChatGPT has a free plan, but you can also sign up for a paid subscription called ChatGPT Plus. ChatGPT Plus offers a number of benefits, including access during peak times, faster responses, and priority access to new features and improvements.

Once you have access to ChatGPT, start by asking it a question. Phrase it in such a way as you would naturally speak to a fellow human being, and ChatGPT will understand what you mean. ChatGPT will then generate an answer based on the sources it has available to it.

Come up with ideas for using ChatGPT in your technical writing, such as creating potential structures for your articles. If you have existing content, feed it to ChatGPT to see how it could be improved. ChatGPT can help you structure your content and help provide alternative phrasing, as well as optimize your document for SEO.

Here’s an example of an answer to a question in ChatGPT:

As you can see, ChatGPT has the ability to analyze the validity of an input and provide a coherent response based on the knowledge from its database. In technical writing, you could use ChatGPT to answer a similar question, such as “How can I reboot my computer?” Of course, ChatGPT is unlikely to have knowledge of specific systems but will be able to provide you with a general answer based on other data from the internet, which you can then fact-check for your specifications.

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Benefits of ChatGPT for Technical Writing

Improve Efficiency

While human writers may take a long time to research and write documentation, ChatGPT can generate content in seconds. It has the ability to scan vast amounts of data in a way that no human ever could, and therefore take advantage of the collective intelligence. Technical writers could use ChatGPT to help them complete a project in a much shorter time span than usual.

Consistency in Grammar and Sentence Formation

ChatGPT has been trained on a wide variety of textual data which means that it can be used to create content that has human-like grammar and formatting. ChatGPT documentation makes sense because it has access to millions of examples that have informed its answer to any question that has been asked of it.

To Rewrite, Restructure and Make Information More Concise

ChatGPT can be used on existing text to rewrite the content and ensure that it is more concise for the reader. If you already have documentation in progress, you can use ChatGPT to make it better. It has the capability to make your content more readable by distilling it down to the essential points.

Help Produce Content at Scale

Due to ChatGPT’s vast writing capabilities, larger technical writing projects can benefit from its input as this tool will be able to generate a high volume of output. It takes ChatGPT the same time to produce one document as it does to create tens of documents, meaning that you can achieve your technical writing goals in a much more reasonable timeframe.

Impact of Using ChatGPT for Technical Documentation

ChatGPT has the ability to impact technical documentation by researching huge amounts of information and using it to contribute to the formation of content. Writers can use ChatGPT in a conversational manner to improve their work and structure articles in a way that might otherwise take days to achieve.

Technical writers can gain an idea of what has already been written on a topic to inform their own writing and make it more comprehensive. If you have a question on a subject, ChatGPT can answer it, which can add depth to your writing that might not otherwise be possible.

With the knowledge available to ChatGPT, you can use it to take your technical writing to the next level. While ChatGPT remains simply a tool, it is up to technical writers to find applications for this technology that can benefit them in new and profound ways.

Limitations of ChatGPT in Technical Writing

Technical Principles are not Well Understood

While technical writers usually have a deep understanding of their domain, ChatGPT doesn’t have a particularly good grasp of technical principles. That means you will be unable to generate documentation that will be genuinely helpful to users in a technical sense, as ChatGPT will only be able to produce generic text on any given topic. While ChatGPT can analyze the grammar and structure of your work, it will not be able to fact-check the documentation.

Inadequate Context and Coherence

While ChatGPT can regurgitate content on a specific subject, it does not have the ability to apply context to what has been written. This means there might be background information that is left out and results in text that is lacking in meaning. Coherence is a problem for ChatGPT since it cannot truly understand what will make sense to the reader.

Style Inconsistency in Writing

If you ask ChatGPT different questions,it will likely return answers with different styles, which is not the best output for your readers. Technical writers have the ability to ensure a consistent style across their documentation which cannot currently be mirrored by ChatGPT. Content that feels like it has been written by different authors is prohibitive to the success of end users.

Inability to Adhere to Particular Guidelines

Technical writing usually has to adhere to strict guidelines which are specific to a particular organization or industry. ChatGPT can’t understand guidelines or the need to produce documentation to a certain standard, which means any content created by ChatGPT will need to be rigorously edited.

Lacks Consideration of the Law and Ethics

As ChatGPT is artificial intelligence, it doesn’t understand any consideration of the law or ethics, which means that textual output might not be original or might encourage questionable actions. Technical writers must always use their insight when employing technologies such as ChatGPT to ensure they don’t break any rules.

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Benefits of Concise Documentation

Here are some of the benefits of writing concise documentation:

Simple to consume

A study by the Nielsen Norman Group reveals that most people only read about 20% of words on a web page, and they go further to read if the text is clear, the words and sentences are simple, and the information is easy to understand. This highlights the importance of writing concisely, ensuring the information you are trying to pass is well understood and can be located quickly.

This makes the content appear less intimidating

At first glance, complex documentation overwhelms the reader before they can go through it. Writing concisely breaks down concepts into bite-sized instructions that can be quickly followed.

User-friendly content

Let’s say you’re trying to set up a new piece of software on your computer. You have a manual that’s 50 pages long, with lots of technical jargon and confusing instructions. You’re unsure where to start or how to complete the installation process.

Now imagine you have a concise version of the manual, which has been carefully written to be user-friendly. The instructions are clear and easy to understand, with step-by-step guidance that includes helpful graphics and illustrations.

The concise manual makes the content user-friendly and the software installation process easy without any confusion.

Saves time in navigation

Spending hours trying to find a solution or information in a document can be avoided with concise documentation. The format and structure of concise documentation, like clear headings and subheadings, enable readers to navigate it, saving time and effort.

Best Practices to Write Concise Documentation

Here are some best practices for writing concise documentation:

Start with the main points

It’s easy to get carried away and include many details that aren’t necessary when writing. Starting with the main points means focusing on the most important information first and adding additional details only if needed.

This helps to keep your writing clear and easy to understand without overwhelming your reader with too much information. Think of it like building a puzzle – you start with the big pieces that form the main picture and then add the smaller pieces to fill in the details.

By starting with the main points, you create a strong foundation for your writing that is easy to build on.

Organize the content logically

To ensure that your documentation is clear and understandable, it’s important to organize the content logically. This means presenting information in a structured way that makes sense to your readers.

For example, if you were writing instructions for a recipe, you would want to organize the content logically so that someone who has never cooked before can follow along easily. You might start with a list of ingredients, followed by step-by-step dish preparation instructions. You might also include tips or variations on the recipe

Eliminate Unnecessary Information

It’s important only to include the information that is relevant and necessary for your audience to understand.

This means removing any extra or unnecessary details that may confuse or overwhelm your readers.

For example, if you’re creating instructions for how to use a new product, you don’t need to include information about the history of the company that made it.

Eliminating unnecessary information can make your documentation easier to read and understand and save your readers time and effort.

Eliminate Extra Nouns

Extra nouns are words that don’t add meaning or information to a sentence. For example, instead of “The car that I own,” you could write “My car.” This is because the word “that I own” doesn’t add any new information, as it’s implied that you own the car if you’re talking about it. You can make your writing more concise and easier to read by eliminating extra nouns.

Here’s another example: instead of “The teacher who teaches math,” you could write “The math teacher.” This is because it’s clear from the context that the teacher is the one who teaches math, so there’s no need to include the extra words “which teaches.”

To write concisely, it’s important to ensure every word counts.

Write in Active Voice

When writing, we can use either passive or active voice. Active voice means that the subject of the sentence is doing the action, while Passive voice means that the subject is being acted upon.

For example:

• Passive voice: The mistake was made by me.
• Active voice: I made a mistake.

Using an active voice in your writing clarifies who or what is doing the action and makes your writing concise and more engaging for the reader.

Also Read: How to Create Technical Documentation with Examples

Examples of Concise Documentation

I’ll give an example of a document that uses these best practices well. By analyzing this example, you can learn more about how to make your documentation concise.

One great example to explore is the Document360 Getting Started Guide, which provides a helpful introduction to the Document360 platform. Let’s look at what makes it a great example of concise documentation!

• The document has a clear title: “Document360 Getting Started Guide”, which gives an idea of what the document is about.
• The document is well-structured with headings and subheadings, which help to quickly navigate to the specific information needed. For example, the first section is titled “Introduction,” which gives a broad overview of the platform and how it works.
• The language used in the document is simple and easy to understand, making it user-friendly. For example, the document uses everyday language instead of technical jargon to explain concepts.
• The document includes illustrations and graphics, such as screenshots of the platform, which help to understand the information visually.
• The document eliminates unnecessary information and extra nouns, keeping the content focused and to the point.

The Document360 Getting Started Guide is a great example of concise documentation. It’s easy to read, well-organized, user-friendly, and helps us quickly understand the needed information.

Also, check out our Guide to Create Technical Specification Document

Ready to Create Successful Documentation?

Document360 is a documentation software that you can use to create concise documents by implementing various features, such as:

Formatting content: You can format text using bold, italic, or underline options, change font sizes, and add bullet points or numbered lists.

Adding headings: With Document360, you can add headings to your documents, making it easier for your readers to navigate through the document’s different sections.

Subheadings: You can also add subheadings to your documents, which help to organize the content and make it easier to read.

Visuals: Document360 offers the option to add visuals such as images, videos, diagrams, and graphs to help illustrate the document’s content.

Table of Contents (TOC): You can create a table of contents to provide an overview of the document’s structure and allow readers to switch to specific sections quickly.

By utilizing these features, Document360 enables you to create well-organized and visually appealing documents that are concise.

Also Read: How to Test the Usability of Technical Documents with Tips & Checklist