Importance of Documentation

Why do we need documentation?

Have you ever encountered a technical problem that you were unaware of and wished there was someone to help? Have you looked up self-help documentation that saved the day?

I always took the help of technical documents for various issues ranging from setting up a musical toy for a kid to integrating an API with a website. I was surprised when I found out the amount of infrastructure that goes into the development of these documents!

A huge team is involved in handling different tasks. A variety of tools starting from Microsoft Word to Doc-as-Code are used.

What causes inefficient documentation?

Let us look into what causes inefficient documentation.

To conclude, the various causes of inefficient documentation result in wasted time, wasted resources, non-value-adding activities, unnecessary duplication processes, etc. This in turn leads to an unhappy audience, which in turn leads to loss of money. Hence, these causes must be eliminated to achieve a cost-effective and future-proof documentation process.

How do we make our documentation effective?

1. Take the help of Tools:

Tools and methods can support the documentation process. For example, in user analysis, we can have information gathering methods; during production and review, we can have content and document editors like Word, FrameMaker, RoboHelp, Madcap Flare, and so on. For publishing, we can have content management systems like SharePoint or a website.

2. Plan and Manage Cycle:

In order to conduct document management efficiently, we need to plan and manage each phase of the life cycle (user analysis, content gathering, production and review, approval and sign-off, publishing, maintenance, and monitoring) and for each interrogative (what, how, where, when, why, who). We need to have the right definition of systems, roles, processes, and so on, to plan and manage each cell of that matrix.

3. Single-Source Publishing:

This is also known as multi-channel publishing. It is a method where we can reuse the same piece of content to generate different kinds of documentation outputs like books -for example in PDF format; HTML or online help.

4. Modular Documentation:

This is a methodology that looks at splitting content into smaller chunks. Hence, you can manage and reuse them better, and publish any document deliverable, and output in different formats. The content in linear documentation suffers the reusability issue.

Modular documentation is documentation based on modules, which the writer combines into assemblies. An assembly can also include other assemblies.

See here to explore modules further.

DITA is a standard, which when associated with a CMS (Content Management System) like Ixiasoft, and an editor like Oxygen, provides all the features of effective documentation that we have discussed. DITA can also be used without a CMS and with any other XML editor.

What is DITA?

DITA stands for Darwin Information Typing Architecture. It is an XML-based data model (architecture) which is used for authoring and organizing information. DITA is defined and maintained by Oasis DITA Technical Committee.

For more more information on DITA, check out my blog on DITA.