How Your Developers Can Improve Your Company's Documentation
If your developers, designers, administrators, and employees are not documenting their work, then your business is not functioning as well as it could. Simply put, thorough documentation can really help improve workflow and increase reliability. Good documentation not only prevents gaps in understanding how things work but also makes it much easier for any employee to get up to speed and work effectively.
However, in reality, bad documentation can be worse than no documentation at all. If the documentation is poorly written, using it can be fraught with difficulties, and employees can become so confused that they cannot do anything until they untangle the thread.
And documentation is not just for developers. Documentation can be used in any area of company activity, for example:
- How to use software
- Using equipment
- Any workflow
- General best practices
- Employee onboarding
- HR work and recruitment
Although documentation may take some time, the effort is worth it because in the long run your company will save significant time and avoid confusion and obstacles to success.
With that said, how can your developers improve their documentation? Let's look at a few ideas.
Developing Documentation Policies
This should be the very first thing you do to improve documentation. Whether you are starting this journey from scratch or tackling improvement of all existing documentation, take the time to develop policies for the process and the final outputs.
In these policies, define what should be included in the documentation, who the target audience is, which documentation tools are preferred, what role comments play, whether the documentation will be stored in a version control system (e.g., Git), and whether the documentation must adhere to a specific style.
Once you have developed these policies, make sure all documentation follows them precisely.
Use Active Voice
In the interest of creating concise and clear documentation, developers should understand how to use active voice. The opposite of active voice is passive voice, which significantly reduces clarity, consistency, and effectiveness.
A simple example of active and passive voice is as follows:
- Active voice – Bob ran the marathon.
- Passive voice – The marathon was run by Bob.
When you use active voice, the subject performs the action (Bob ran the marathon). When using passive voice, the subject performs the action (Bob ran the marathon).
You want every sentence in your documentation to be as clear and simple as possible. Don't complicate things or make the documentation reader struggle for clarity.
Encourage the Use of Catchy Headings
Good documentation should be regarded on the same level as writing any type of content. You should use catchy headings so that the reader knows exactly what follows what and what to expect. This is especially relevant given that everyone everywhere is under an avalanche of content. As a result, users tend to skip over much more than before. When you use catchy headings (and subheadings), reading and absorbing the content becomes much easier.
Anything that can be done to lighten the burden on those who have to refer to the documentation should definitely be done.
Leave Buzzwords and Abbreviations in the Past
When using catchy headings, try to avoid using complex words. This is especially important in the tech field, since not everyone understands all those buzzwords and abbreviations.
When writing documentation, it's important to approach it as if the person reading it is not up to speed on everything and doesn't know modern jargon. Documentation is meant to help others understand how your company does and uses things. If your developers rely too heavily on buzzwords and abbreviations, there is no guarantee that the reader of the documentation will understand what they read.
Adding Visuals
Whenever possible, add visual images to your documentation. This is especially important when documenting the use of a tool with a graphical interface. Instead of describing a graphical element, show a picture. After all, they say a picture is worth a thousand words, and in the realm of documentation, that proverb is quite true.
Create and Use Templates
To make this process easier, you can create documentation templates that developers will use. This will significantly reduce the amount of work, as developers will have a simple document to guide them when creating documentation.
When creating such templates, be sure to include any information that not only ensures consistency in documentation but also makes it easier to create the final content. Consider this as a way to help developers in the documentation creation process. The easier it is for them to do it, the more likely they are to actually write documentation, and their work will meet your guidelines and be easy to use.
Conclusion
Creating reliable documentation should be at the top of the list of things that are important for your company's efficient operation. With a solid documentation process in place, everything will go more smoothly. Not only will it be easier for developers to create documentation, but those who depend on it won't have to rack their brains trying to decipher the meaning and purpose of what they are reading.