How to Make Product Documents Sexy?
Nobody wants to work with bad documentation. How to avoid common mistakes and make your docs sexy?
How to find the appropriate ways to make good and effective documents?
The author of Productcoalition asked in his May post: “How to write sexy product docs”?
The answer is rather interesting. Here’re the highlights:
Docs can be sexy. Well-written documentation is a core competency of effective product management.
What makes docs sexy?
- Any doc should not be a lifeless wall of text that collects dust on a shelf. A good doc is written to be read.
- A good doc should be well formatted. It can be read and understood in 3 minutes by anyone in any company.
- A sexy doc avoids jargon.
- It provides business-level perspective or links to it.
- A good doc takes the time to outline non-objectives and risky assumptions. It challenges the reader and pulls out underlying disagreements for discussion.
Good docs elevate decision quality
Good doc template forces us to step back and be intentional. Knowing that your written words will be read by others in the company raises the bar.
Good docs allow product teams to scale
A well-written doc is like creating a hundred copies of yourself. Good leaders repeat themselves, and a good doc supercharges that ability.
Good docs also enable efficient asynchronous communication, killing unnecessary meetings and freeing people’s time. Reading a good doc takes three minutes, and allows the reader to choose whether to invest further by commenting or to move on to other work.