Technical documentation outlines what a product can do and encompasses various formats text, graphics, and videos. Created by development and product teams, it details the functionality, architecture, usage, and maintenance of technologies, products, systems, or processes.
Suppose you invent a new technology that can increase website speed fivefold. Since only you understand the technology, neither you nor anyone else can benefit unless you explain it to others and help them implement it. What do you do?
You set up a company to develop software based on your invention. To ensure the company hires developers with the requisite skills, HR must outline the screening process so managers can understand and follow it. What does HR do?
At the end of each financial year, the finance department must explain your company's financial situation in a way that you and other stakeholders can understand. What does finance do?
For each situation described above, the tool that will help get ideas across is technical documentation.
Technical documentation outlines what a product can do and encompasses various formats text, graphics, and videos. Created by development and product teams, it details the functionality, architecture, usage, and maintenance of technologies, products, systems, or processes. This documentation is essential for supporting different departments and optimizing technology effectively.
Here, it is important to emphasize that “technical” domains are not limited to IT and engineering. Real estate, HR, finance, investing, retail, construction, agriculture, transportation, and logistics are all technical domains.
Each of these domains is defined by its principles, specialized skills and knowledge, tools and technologies, standard and best practices, regulatory and compliance requirements, and several additional relevant aspects. And technical documentation is a tool used by practitioners working in all these technical domains.
Technical documentation is a tool that enables information exchange between stakeholders. It is an indispensable tool because information is the basis for decision-making by internal and external stakeholders.
Without accurate and relevant information, business leaders cannot make informed decisions, and neither can employees perform their jobs properly.
Similarly, users can utilize or benefit from products and services only when they possess relevant and necessary information.
Follow this step-by-step process to create technical documentation.
The first step is to know your goal: what do you want the document to accomplish?
If your goal is to convince higher management about a particular business strategy, you would create a report with information, data, and analyses that back up your arguments and demonstrate the validity of your proposal.
If you are launching a new product and want to demonstrate its superiority over competing products, you would create a case study highlighting the benefits of the new product.
If you have an existing product and want to provide clarity to users about a particular feature, you would create a tutorial with comprehensive coverage of that feature.
The kind of documentation you create and its content depends on your goal. Therefore, clarity is the first and most important step.
The documentation you create is not for you: it’s for your audience. Therefore, understanding the audience, i.e. their needs, preferences, and goals, is critical.
If you are creating a report for higher management, providing unnecessary technical details will not help them. Instead, you must empathize with them and share information and data that will help them achieve their goals.
Similarly, if you are creating a user manual, using highly technical language and jargon will make the manual completely useless. Instead, you must use language that the lay user can comprehend.
Put yourself in the shoes of your audience. Only then can you create effective documentation.
You can use different formats for your documentation, including text, images, and video. Choose the format that suits your goals and the audience’s needs.
For example, if you have an existing product and are releasing new features, rewriting the user manual and editing and reviewing it will require a lot of time and effort. Instead, you can create a short video with information about the new features and use cases.
The next step is to structure the documentation: create the list of chapters or sections you want to include, and the figures, tables, and appendices.
Structure is not only required for written documentation, it is also required for other formats such as video. Structure gives you increased clarity about the exact content to include in the documentation and how to present it for maximum effectiveness.
Once you have a detailed plan, you can create content for the documentation.
Creating traditional documentation is an expensive and time-consuming process. If you are a subject matter expert (SME), you have your roles and responsibilities, which might not include creating content for documentation. A team of dedicated writers and designers will assist you and create the documentation. You will review and approve the documentation and suggest changes. This process might require multiple iterations before you are satisfied.
When you have large product lines, the expense and time required to create documentation increases proportionally.
AI-enabled documentation platforms such as Documentations AI eliminate the limitations of the traditional documentation creation process and streamline the process, allowing you to save considerable time and expense.
Once the documentation is ready, you can share it with relevant stakeholders for review and approval.
This process can take time but is essential for ensuring accuracy and relevance.
Before publishing documentation, it is a good idea to test it by asking end-users or target audience members to go through it and use it i.e. complete tasks or set up systems.
Based on user feedback, you can update the documentation, which will improve its effectiveness and give you confidence that the documentation will serve its purpose.
After testing, you can proceed to documentation publication.
You can choose the publication platform depending on the format and user preferences:
Documentation lives and breathes, and requires maintenance to incorporate the following:
Technical documentation provides multiple benefits for businesses and users.
These are some of the business benefits of technical documentation.
High-quality documentation is a differentiating factor that highlights attention to detail and helps you stand out from the competition. It also enhances your reputation for professionalism and quality.
Detailed information about products and services is a catalyst for the sales process: it helps potential customers by providing information they need to make informed purchasing decisions.
When you invest in creating high-quality documentation, it helps customers solve problems independently. As a result, the volume of customer support inquiries is reduced.
You can reduce costs by optimizing the size of your customer support teams and utilizing freed-up resources in revenue-generating activities.
Employee turnover is part of business life. When employees leave, critical information is often lost if an organization lacks mechanisms for retaining organizational knowledge. Without knowledge management systems, new hires need substantially more time and training before they can start to contribute.
Technical documentation captures the expertise and knowledge of employees, preventing the loss of critical information when they leave the company.
Furthermore, documentation is a knowledge-sharing tool: employees working in different departments and locations can access and benefit from shared information.
In addition, through documentation, organizations can retain and share best practices and lessons learned to drive innovation and development.
Technical documentation supports strategic growth by providing comprehensive, accurate, and accessible information for informed decision-making.
It streamlines stakeholder communication through documented strategies, plans, and progress reports. This builds trust and facilitates support for growth initiatives.
A record of past projects, successes, and failures provides valuable lessons and benchmarks for future strategies.
Identified and documented risks and mitigation strategies help businesses make proactive decisions to avoid pitfalls and capitalize on opportunities.
Comprehensive records and reports help leaders make data-driven decisions by providing insights into performance metrics.
Here are some examples that demonstrate how investing in robust technical documentation allows businesses to achieve regulatory compliance and reduce the probability of legal complications:
Technical documentation benefits users by providing an enhanced user experience.
Documentation in multiple formats caters to different learning preferences and accessibility needs.
Safety warnings and compliance information allow safe product operation per regulations.
Introductory guides provide a smooth onboarding process for new users, helping them quickly become familiar with products and services.
Clear instructions help users understand how to use products and services, reducing frustration and errors.
Training materials and tutorials help users become proficient with products, boosting confidence and satisfaction
Troubleshooting guides allow users to quickly resolve common issues without needing to contact customer support.
Now, let’s take a look at some examples of effective technical documentation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR_t9owJpRA
Loom is a software tool designed to create and share screen recordings. It is widely used for communication, especially in remote and distributed teams.
This short 1½-minute video tutorial demonstrates how to make screen recordings with the tool’s Chrome browser extension.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHzIGGU-Ph0
Salesforce CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is a cloud-based software platform designed to help businesses manage and analyze customer interactions and data throughout the customer lifecycle. It is known for its comprehensive suite of tools and features that cater to various business needs, including sales and marketing, and customer service and support.
This training video is aimed at beginners. It takes users through the platform, starting from the main dashboard, and continuing through the modules, including leads, accounts, contacts, opportunities, cases, and reports.
NVIDIA is a leading technology company known for its graphics processing units (GPUs) and related technologies. Its product offerings cover various sectors, including gaming, professional visualization, data centers, and automotive.
NVIDIA Jetson is a series of embedded computing boards and modules developed for edge computing and AI applications. These platforms bring high-performance, energy-efficient computing power to a wide range of devices and applications.
This first episode of the video training covers setting up a Jetson Nano with JetPack. Topics covered include the Jetson Nano developer kit, flashing the OS, configuring the OS, and setting the SWAP size.
Implementing the following best practices will help you create effective documentation.
Use clear and straightforward language to explain concepts and procedures. Minimize technical jargon unless it is essential and well-understood by the audience.
Use consistent terminology and formatting throughout the documentation to aid user comprehension and prevent misunderstandings and confusion.
Visual aids, such as images, diagrams, and screenshots, improve engagement and help to illustrate complex concepts and procedures.
If your documentation is in a digital format, make sure it is optimized for multiple platforms, including desktop and mobile devices.
A system for user feedback helps with relevant updates and enables continuous improvement.
There are two main categories of technical documentation, as defined by the audience: internal and external.
Internal documentation is designed for use by an organization’s employees. Organizations can use it to ensure smooth and efficient operations, maintain compliance, support employee training and development, and facilitate effective communication and decision-making across all departments. Here are the types of internal technical documentation:
External documentation is designed to assist users, customers, and stakeholders outside the organization. It provides detailed information about products, services, or processes, ensuring that external parties can effectively use, understand, and benefit from them. Here are the types of external technical documentation:
Consider an example: a product’s 200-page user manual. It includes a table of contents, detailed chapters, images, tables, and appendices. In other words, it is comprehensive and weighs a ton. A user who wants to find information about a particular use case goes through the entire manual but is unable to find the information he or she is looking for. Would you consider this manual useful? Most likely you would not.
The same user then goes to the YouTube channel of the product’s manufacturer. There, he or she sees a short 1-minute video covering the topic the user is interested in. In one minute only, the user goes through the video, and in another five minutes, he or she has solved their problem. Would you consider this video useful? Most likely you would.
Documentation is effective when it is useful, i.e. when it satisfies the needs of the audience.
There was a time when the only option for technical documentation was the written format. Creating written documentation is an expensive and time-consuming process, Specialist technical writers are required who work with subject matter experts to create documentation. Creation, updates, and documentation maintenance all require time and a lot of effort.
That time is long gone.
Thanks to technology and AI, today you have multiple options for creating documentation. Especially with video documentation platforms like Documentation.AI, you can quickly and easily create documentation with minimal effort. Just upload a screen recording and the platform will convert it into polished documentation within minutes.
Sign up today for a free trial and experience the power of AI-powered high-quality technical documentation.