In this guide, we cover software documentation types, examples, and best practices for improving the quality of your documentation process. Looking at other software documentation examples can inspire your own project, although your processes will be entirely your own.
First and foremost, there are several types of software documentation, but the two main categories are product documentation and system documentation. Each documentation type requires a slightly different approach since they are aimed at different audiences.
Daniel Procida from Divio talks about the four different types of software user documentation and remember, users can also be developers :.
Your users can also be developers, and there are very specific types of documentation aimed at developers only. This is where it gets fascinating, but some developer-only docs include:. Consider code documentation that lives alongside the software, possibly in GitHub or similar tool — otherwise, none of your developers will read it.
Distinguish between internal software documentation and external end-user facing documentation — you typically need different writers with each. If your target audience is not internal, then your audience is likely to be your customer base. Splunk provides an in-depth guide in their book The Product is the Docs on how to define your audience for technical writers.
It also applies equally, if not more, on knowing your audience. This is an exercise that is useful not just for technical writers but also for other members of your company, including marketing, engineering, product, and support.
Remember, your software users may change over time. Repeat this exercise at least once a year. The Docs Like Code methodology is a subset of Agile, and it means using the same tools and processes for the docs as you would for the software.
Anne says:. By adopting software techniques such as continuous integration, automated testing, and incremental improvement for docs, you get docs that are on par with the code itself. Make your tech writers part of every scrum team instead of having a dedicated documentation team, since this encourages better collaboration between writers and developers. When producing documentation, you will need to think about version control, source control, and collaboration.
Keep your documentation tasks in the same tools as the software, such as Jira. Instead of having your own Content Management System, use the same version control software that your developers use for the code.
Instead of documenting every feature comprehensively, you produce articles as they become necessary based on your customer support tickets. Naturally, this approach relates mostly to customer-facing product documentation rather than system docs or API docs aimed at technical folks. With develop-facing documentation, you want to try to be comprehensive. Minimum Viable Documentation is an approach that makes sense when you have limited access to technical writing resources, and you have to produce relatively large amounts of documentation at speed.
It means that you aim for the minimum amount of content that you need to be successful, and no more. Software documentation can easily fall under the radar until the last minute unless you make a concerted effort to prioritize through the Software Development Lifecycle.
Hire technical writers who can promote the value of documentation within your company — Splunk has some great advice on how to do this.
Using the same tools as your development team can really help with this, since your documentation is far more visible. Resourcefulness and eagerness are key. When you screen tech writer candidates, look for a real appetite for discovery. This means empowering everyone on your development team to be a documentarian, from engineering, to product, to support, although not everyone will not directly write the documentation. Especially when you have a complex product that changes frequently, you need to take a conscious approach to how you produce documentation.
Your content strategy draws on your audience's definitions in determining the approach you take. Even if you use Just In Time methodologies, you have to think about your documentation as a whole.
For example, do a comprehensive audit of your docs — many companies have the same content living in more than one place, reams of outdated documentation, or content that is just plain wrong. A documentation content strategy helps you keep on track, allocate resources, and manage your time. It can be particularly helpful for engineering teams, as this article by Increment explores.
In software documentation, no one person has all the answers and your technical writers will be evaluated on their ability to get the most about Subject-Matter Experts.
Many of these SMEs will be engineers. Your developers are likely to know the product so well that it may be hard to get practical answers from them that can translate into documentation.
Documentation should not only be written by technical writers — it should ideally be a synchronized collaboration between your documentation team, engineers, and support. You need to make time for the technical review so that your SMEs can verify the accuracy of your documentation, as well as testing your docs on users.
We already touched on Quality Assurance QA for your documentation a little when we talked about using Agile methodologies. Documentation should not be published until it has been subject to technical verification, which is the point when QA tests your documentation to see if whatever solution you have presented works. Your customers should not be the first testers of your documentation, or you have failed to provide working docs.
Build this testing phase into your Agile process so that team members leave time to test before the product or feature ships. By now, you should have everything you need to start writing a professional software design document. This is where we, Tara AI , come into play. Our platform creates a unified view of everything your team needs for software development, from user stories, project specifications, requirement documents down to the most granular project tasks.
Say goodbye to operational silos. We also offer an insight-driven sprint view that enables your team to seamlessly assign tasks, track effort, and visualize the scope of your development. One thing that all businesses have in common is that profitability, and ultimately their success ….
What are the best tools in product management software? No Comments. Are you using software design documents when building new products? Hopefully you already know how vital a role software design documents SDDs play. Project management, made simple. Get Started for Free! Previous post Release log Feb 20, Next post Introducing the new engineering dashboard and smart insights too! Related posts. Product Management. What is a project scope?
Simply put, a project scope defines the intricate details of …. Software design documents are sometimes also called product or technical specifications. You can adjust one of these templates to fit your needs:. Today, as more businesses prefer to migrate to the cloud, there are some well-known trusted providers that offer training and architecture samples to facilitate operating in their environments:.
There are several common practices that can be applied to all the major types of documentation we discussed above. You should find a balance between no documentation and excessive documentation. Poor documentation causes many errors and reduces efficiency in every phase of software product development.
At the same time, there is no need to provide an abundance of documentation and to repeat information in several papers. Only the most necessary and relevant information should be documented. Try to keep your documentation simple and reader friendly. It has to be logically structured and easily searchable, so include the table of contents.
Avoid long blocks of text whenever possible and use visual content as it is easier to absorb information this way for most people. You also have to remember who the document is written for.
If it is for end-users, it definitely has to be written in plain language so that the readers are able to understand it without consulting the tech dictionary. However, if it is for your team tech specialists, make sure you provide all the accuracy and details they need to stick to the development plan and build the needed design and features.
Use cross-links between documents, whether those are product pages or user guides. Proper navigation through your documentation is important to give the reader the right understanding of a subject. Such practice can be considered user-flow, but for your project documentation. Documentation can be dedicated to internal or external usage.
In the case of external documents, it is better to provide a clear explanation of every term, and its specific meaning in the project. Documentation should communicate ideas in clear language to set lingua franca between stakeholders, internal members, and users. Proper maintenance is very important as documents that are outdated or inconsistent automatically lose their value.
It is a good practice to establish some sort of maintenance and update schedule. You can either make it at regular intervals, i. Automated emails or release notes can help you follow the changes made by the development team.
You can also use a version control tool to manage this process more efficiently. It will let you track changes made, retain previous versions and drafts, and keep everyone aligned. The agile method is based on a collaborative approach to creating documentation. If you want to achieve efficiency, interview programmers and testers about the functionalities of the software. Then, after you have written some documentation, share it with your team and get feedback.
To get more information try to comment, ask questions, and encourage others to share their thoughts and ideas. Every team member can make a valuable contribution to the documents you produce. The person who generally does this job is called a technical writer. A tech writer with an engineering background can gather information from developers without requiring someone to explain in detail what is going on.
He or she will be able to take part in regular meetings and discussions. The agile methodology encourages engineering teams to always focus on delivering value to their customers. This key principle must also be considered in the process of producing software documentation. Good software documentation should be provided whether it is a software specifications document for programmers and testers or software manuals for end-users. Comprehensive software documentation is specific, concise, and relevant.
You should rather focus only on those documents that directly help achieve project objectives. Yes, I understand and agree to the Privacy Policy. You need to add documentation maintenance to your content. Put also troubleshooting guide and workflow to speed up resolution time by reducing time to find out source of the problem. Thanks for the advice, Sudiro! Hi all, as former software developer, software user documentation designer and now owning a Tech Communication company, I would suggest to include tools born to help the technical writer.
We meet a lot of companies that start the user documentation journey just with editors. Or with general-purpose tools. With those systems, you can build various publications starting from the same content. High reuse of information. And you can easily manage multilingual user documentation.
A very well constructed and informative article. I would also suggest that aspects of third-party solutions that make up the entire system be fully documented so there is no doubt about what makes up the entire solution, An aspect that I think is not covered so well as just how you bring all this together integrated with your database schema details in an organised and structured manner so that there … Read more ».
Furthermore, a software can have lots of features.. Thank you very much for your attention, this article is very useful!! Hi Giulia, thanks for the question! Keeping this process organized requires guidelines, timeframe, and frameworks. In reply to your second comment, UX documentation would also cover functionality points including the required features.
Estimates are created before the project starts and can be changed in the course of product development. But if a team is small, a project manager can write the documentation. Also, you can hire a technical writer to complete this task.
The value to the organization is the documentation. From this documentation patents can be developed, contracts can be crafted. Basically, the intellectual property of the organization is in the documentation, not the software itself. For this reason, many organizations continue to use a hybrid adaptation of Water-Fall for documentation. Adobe XD at newserialkeys is a vector-based user experience tool for web applications: mobile applications developed and published by Adobe Inc.
It is available for macOS and Windows, although there are iOS and Android versions to help you preview the work directly. XD is much easier to use than Illustrator or Photoshop. Join the list of 9, subscribers and get the latest technology insights straight into your inbox. Altexsoft Menu. Share: Facebook. Last Updated:. Subscribe to our newsletter Yes, I understand and agree to the Privacy Policy. Connect with:. Notify of new replies to this comment.
Sort by: newest oldest most voted. Jul 6, Hide Replies. Jul 9, AltexSoft Team. Good point, James! Jun 8, Jun 10, Jan 6, Jan 8, Vilma, thanks for the feedback! Aug 27, Jul 5, Jun 26, Jan 13, Greg Tomkins. Jan 7, Jan 17, Nov 23, Dec 2, Jun 25, Bryan, thanks for sharing your experience and thoughts on the topic!
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