Five Tips For Writing Great Technical Documentation

Creating technical documentation is part of doing work in the IT industry. Technical manuals, technical specification instructions, support guides, implementation manuals - each are types of technical documentation and are a part of the job. A lot of technical roles in the IT industry take part in the documentation process. It might just seem straightforward to just put some words and diagrams together, a table of contents and think of it as a technical document, but it’s a little more than that. I’ve listed five tips below on how to write great tech docs.

Use A Well-Structured Table of Contents

The table of contents is among the most important section of a document. The table of contents lists what is in fact in the document and how it is arranged. It is used to help users understand that the document provides the information they are looking for. Examining the table of contents, they are able to easily see if it has what they need, or if they need to read another document.

An additional benefit of having a well structured table of contents is it allows the reader to find the information they need quickly. Microsoft Word, Adobe PDF and also other document applications allow clickable links of the table of contents. This enables you to click the item or the page number and it will take you to that page. Very helpful for finding topics fast.

Be Succinct But Thorough

Being a technical document author, it’s hard to really know what amount and what kind of information to put into this document. To write a great document, try to be brief, but thorough. What this means is not to go on and on and into all kinds of detail about certain areas which aren't needed by the reader. It's not easy to tell what’s relevant and what isn’t - but make an attempt to consider the reader and target audience when you’re writing the document. If you are too “wordy” or use too much information where it’s unnecessary, it will turn the readers off and it won’t be an effective document.

Be Consistent Throughout The Document

Consistency is a major way to enhance a document. It will make it look more professional, and in actual fact more readable to the user. When I say consistency, I mean regularity both in the lingo you use and the formatting are applying. Some individuals won’t notice this. Nevertheless, if you’re composing a technical document, it’s more than likely for other technical users, who are usually detail-focused people. Ensure your document uses the same formatting throughout. Try to break the data up and make it understandable to the users by making use of white space effectively.

Using the same expressions is also recommended. This will likely ensure that the user knows you’re writing about the same thing by using the same words. If you utilize words interchangeably, for example “desktop”, “PC”, “computer”, it could possibly confuse the user, when you actually mean the same thing. That’s a quick example, but the idea is that you should choose the one term and stay with it.

Keep It Accurate And Error-Free

It almost goes without saying that technical documentation really should be error free. As I stated above, quite a few readers of the document will be other technical users, and there’s a pretty good possibility the errors will stand out to them. In addition to that, if the errors don’t jump out, then it provides them with the wrong information regarding the system or area that you’re documenting - which defeats the objective of the document!

Avoid Large Screen Captures

Making use of screen captures or screenshots within your documentation is definitely an effective way of explaining your point to the reader. It’s primarily useful for software documentation or support processes, which are easy to take screenshots of. However, computer screens have gotten larger over the years, but A4 sheets have always been the same size.

This leaves an inclination to incorporate large screenshots in a document, which makes the screenshots small and ineffective. Including screenshots is a great idea - don’t get me wrong - but make an effort to only include the areas that are related to the section you’re explaining. This tends to lead to more screenshots, however they will be more effective and make the document more readable.