Child documents, or sub-documents, make up the bulk of a project. Think of them as Lego blocks – pieces of various sizes that can be put together to make all sorts of end documents. Each child document answers a single question, or addresses a single topic.
Traditional software documents are created from the top down. Figure out who will be doing what with the software, then write documents aimed at each category of users, explaining how to use every bit of functionality they should (theoretically) need to use. This method really doesn’t fit in well with modern software design. So how can we use basic concepts from Agile methodology to develop Agile documentation?
Your documentation is one of the first things people look at when they’re having trouble using your product – or thinking of using your product. As such, it’s a powerful ambassador for your company.
So let’s look at some of the aspects of documentation strategy that you need to consider.
In Sphinx project, ‘base documents’ are like the skeleton of a manual. In a table of contents, they’ll show up as the chapter headings.
Agile documentation isn’t that hard once you get your head around applying software development methodology and concepts to technical writing. Here are a few tips for making your documentation truly agile.
A master file controls almost all of the content that will be included in your user manual. It contains a list of your base documents and specifies what your table of contents will look like.
Many software companies give their technical writers the responsibility for creating a documentation strategy. While it can work well at times, it often ends in a huge mess. Even where the technical writers are well up to the challenge – many are – they frequently don’t get the backup they desperately need.
30 years ago, it was the stuff of science fiction. These days, we take the idea of talking to chatbots fairly calmly. But we often forget to think about them in terms of documentation.
5 Types of User Feedback to Collect
Users leave us a lot of feedback these days. Some of it is active and deliberate, like adding a comment to an article on a website. Some of it is incidental, like clicking on an article and then closing the browser window before the page has fully loaded. And many companies aren’t taking advantage of all of the user feedback they could be collecting.