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Docs or It Didn’t Happen: The Value of Tech Documentation

Docs or It Didn’t Happen: The Value of Tech Documentation

If your project team doesn't include a technical writer, it's time to reconsider. Learn how technical documentation enables faster onboarding, improved communication, and better decisions.

“Docs or it didn’t happen” is not just a mantra for technical writers, but for anyone involved in building products, or solutions, who cares about technical documentation. Documentation is never a by-product or afterthought, but an integral part of a solution. It bridges the gap between development and usage, between the known and the unknown, and the technical and the understandable.

Technical Writing at Wizeline

At Wizeline, the value of documentation is present in every project, each fitting our customers’ particular business needs. This means that we analyze the requirements of every project and cater high-quality documentation at the right time, to the right stakeholders. What we aim to achieve is a constant in every project we work on:

  • To enable faster and smoother onboarding and handover processes.
  • To explain complex concepts for better decision-making.
  • To promote product adoption through clear communication.

Write the Docs Conference

There are a few organizations and communities dedicated to evangelizing the importance of documentation. One of them is Write the Docs. The organization describes itself as “a global community of people who care about documentation” and organize conferences all over the planet.

In May, Wizeline gave us the opportunity to attend the Write the Docs conference in Portland. We got the pleasure to immerse ourselves in the writing community to see how different companies and their writers approach documentation and the unavoidable bottlenecks that come with it.

Sharing Industry-leading Knowledge

Attending the conference helped us on a personal level by expanding our network, but it also helped us on a team level by improving our practice. The conference covered multiple topics that are the current trend in the industry: Growing writing collaboration from non-writers, improving the use of images and diagrams, and empowering the development and adoption of new products.

For example, there was a talk on the use of images we found particularly interesting. Not because the idea was new to us, but because it provided a new angle. We learned that the proper use of images can add a lot to the readability of our documentation. We already focus on how complete and useful our documents are, but we also want our documentation to be read in a way that’s easy and enjoyable.

We plan to share this knowledge and more with our Technical Writing team, and translate it into benefits for our client projects. Staying up-to-date with the industry is key to providing our customers with the best experience through development, release, and post-release of their products.

Wizeline exists within an ever-changing industry and benefits from keeping tabs on its issues, solutions, and trends. As Technical Writers, we can also benefit from learning more about the documentation aspects of our industry. Through learning, we win, Wizeline wins, and our customers win.

Written by Berenice Beltrán and Luca Janssens, Technical Writers at Wizeline
Written by Berenice Beltrán and Luca Janssens, Technical Writers at Wizeline

Nellie Luna

Posted by Nellie Luna on June 11, 2019