Analyzing the Product Requirement¶
Documentation helps the user understand about the product/services offered by the company. In order to explain about the product/services, it becomes very important who your audience going to be? Since the knowledge transfer for every user will vary. Audience Analysis, helps to cater this issue very well.
You also need to understand what type of documentation does your product require? The product knowledge will help you understand about the product, how will lay information about its application, functions, features, use and support required by which type of user.
Following are the types of documents Technical Writer needs to write depending upon the product requirement:
- End user documentation
- Admin documentation
- Installation Guides
- FAQs
- Glossary
- Knowledge-base articles
- Whitepapers
- Videos
- Infographics
End user documentation¶
The aim of End-user documentation is to help the end-user understand the process and provide all the answers in one place about the product or service. User documentation is explanatory and informational about the services or product of the company. It helps the user understand and how to use the product or service in an simplified manner without using technical jargons, but easy and comprehensible language.
Admin documentation¶
The aim of admin documentation is to help admin complete the task he/she is looking for. These type of documents are mostly for internal uses in company available to admin for quick reference. It can also be available to customer admin who handles end-user related services. These documents are loaded with technical terminologies and definitions, which are meant for the audience with some pre-requisites to understand it, as it contains tasks that must be done through the GUI/command line.
Installation Guides¶
Installation guide is a technical communication document intended to assist people on how to install a particular program. An installation guide may include the following information: The first part of a guide may give general instructions. Information on the minimum system requirements.
FAQs¶
FAQ stands for Frequently Asked Questions. The purpose of a FAQ is generally to provide information on frequent questions or concerns; however, the format is a useful means of organizing information, and text consisting of questions and their answers may thus be called a FAQ regardless of whether the questions are actually frequently asked.
It is a marketing tool to answer customer query.
Glossary¶
In terms of technical writing, a glossary is a set of terms and explanations that are used in your product documentation. You create it to give end-users additional information - not everything can be described in documentation, some terms and abbreviations require special attention to make the information clear.
Knowledge-base articles¶
The knowledge base may include FAQs, manuals, troubleshooting guides, runbooks, and other information your team may want or need to know. Many knowledge bases are structured around artificial intelligence that can interact and respond to user input. Others are simply indexed encyclopedias.
A knowledge base gives your customers the chance of solving their problems without your help. You get to answer any questions before they even have to ask! A comprehensive knowledge base can significantly reduce the number of phone calls your customers have to make to find answers to their problems.
Most of the times, knowledge base articles are maintained by support people in order to solve the tickets with the same query.
Whitepapers¶
A whitepaper is a persuasive, authoritative, in-depth report on a specific topic that presents a problem and provides a solution. Marketers create whitepapers to educate their audience about a particular issue, or explain and promote a particular methodology. They’re advanced problem-solving guides.
Whitepapers can be asked by product manager.
Videos¶
Many times technical writer is supposed to create educational contents in form of videos for the new recruits as a trainee program or to teach the team members about the product/services.
Infographics¶
Infographics are graphic visual representations of information, data, or knowledge intended to present information quickly and clearly.
Technical writer’s responsibility is to make the document more interactive and helpful. In order to do so, they are advised to create infographics as and when required for those users who skim through information and wants to have a quick look.