Good documentation meets the following criteria:
Complete documentation tells your clients how to use your product to achieve their goals.
To be complete, the documentation must be more than a mass of information. It must be pertinent to your product and well-explained from the users' point-of-view.
A slender handbook containing necessary data is less intimidating and read more than a wordy tome.
Focussed documentation ensures a higher readership and more effective use of your product.
All information must be found easily, regardless of the size of the documentation suite. The entire set of hardcopy/softcopy documentation that accompanies your product.
For more information, see the definitions and examples in Common Types of Modern Documentation.
If information cannot be found, from the users' point-of-view, the information does not exist and the documentation is incomplete.
Good documentation is easy-to-read.
Modern documentation employs epistemology –the study of how people learn– to present the material effectively.
Modern hardcopy documents, such a books or manuals, do not cram each page with tightly-packed, small print.
For example, hardcopy documentation makes use of non-printed areas, known as white space. White space, such as the indentation of this section, reduces reader intimidation and relieves fatigue.
Softcopy documents, such as an online help or web site, contain brief topics. Softcopy documents often use colour to improve interest and may contain animation for meaningful demonstration purposes.
The topic should be covered in a maximum of two screens. If required, a topic may contain popups for quick explanations and hyperlinks to related material.
Click here to send an E-mail, manager@devonia.com
Home | What We Do | Common Types of Modern Documentation
Customer Documentation | Internal Documentation
Contacting Devonia | Employment at Devonia
To view our "standard" web site that uses illustrations and JavaScript, please click here.