One of the most dreaded tasks – writing documentations

Almost every people hates writing documentation. It usually takes place only after everything is done where it is very difficult to recall all the tiny details. And it is likely that nobody else will read it since the person who wrote it has all the knowledge in their head.  That’s why a lot of technical people dread writing documentations.

Sarah Maddox has given an very useful and interesting presentation with tips on making documentation more useful and engaging.

By increasing the engage-ability of the documentation, it increases the value of the documentation as

• more people is likely to read the documentation
• more people will be encouraged to contribute to the documentation
• more people will be encouraged to keep it updated
• more people will share their experiences too

A wiki helps to increase the engage-ability of the documentation by

• making it easier to create documentation during the project rather than end of the project
• making it easier to search (with a in-built search engine)
• making it easier to share and link related information (with threaded comments on the same page)

You can download the slides together with her notes at her blog.

http://ffeathers.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/summit2010-earthmove-sarahmaddox-slideswithnotes.pdf