To succeed in technical writing, you need a lot more than just writing ability. It contains the list of all the features provided by your software and how they work. User personas. All this can be done without much effort by using freely available tools, and building it into your business process ensures that it gets done. We can easily guess that the next translator speaks both French and English, so he doesn’t need the text in both languages. Effective technical documentation is a valuable resource for projects. Let’s go back to our previous code for a second example: Without any information, I can say this is very bad code because there are 3 nested loops and the complexity of this function is far too high. Notice here that you can map only a few entities (not the whole model) in a schema to make it even easier to read. Are you looking for help with your next software project? User documentation takes many forms. But as I said previously, naming (and types) should be enough to understand what a function does, especially if the function has only one purpose. Going forward, aspire to make your documentation more robust by looking for opportunities where additional coverage would be helpful. I describe here what I expect from a good documentation and why it is necessary. Here is an example of unnecessary comments : Today, IDEs can automatically generate function and method headers comments (see example below). The old adage a picture is worth a thousand words means that … October 5, 2020. The essential items to include when documenting a software project, Advanced topics to consider for more complex and mature projects, What tools to use when writing technical documentation, How to include technical documentation in your business process to ensure it gets done. Track new accounts as they’re created, and add to the developer documentation as your system evolves. But I hate even more reading undocumented code. If you haven’t been doing this and you’re looking to improve the documentation for an existing project, don’t get intimidated. This is the most important thing to add into a technical documentation, and by experience, the least written. First of all, you need to understand you are not writing documentation for you, nor for your current team. Teams that use waterfall spend a reasonable amount of time on product planning in the early stage… If you’ve ever assembled a piece of Ikea furniture, you’ve used end-user documentation. Here we start talking about something meaningful: schemas. It should not be ‘technical’ (I mean it should be understandable by people who are not developers). By centralizing information and defining processes, teams are able to be efficient in both their day-to-day operations and periodic tasks such as onboarding new developers. It should be understandable without any other text, but I recommend writing a small paragraph to explain how to read it to make sure everyone understands the same thing. Projects become resilient to unexpected turnover since documentation lets knowledge reside within a project, not within the individuals currently working on it. For long, complex text files, many technical writers prefer a documentation tool such as Adobe FrameMaker. Technical Documentation Basics: How to Write That F***ing Manual - The essentials of technical writing in a nutshell [Achtelig, Marc] on Amazon.com. Contents of a technical … I often hear that a good code does not need documentation. and then write accordingly. I totally agree with this statement. You may also want to have the documentation quickly peer-reviewed (like a code review) by another person to make sure it’s clear and covers the bases before it’s accepted. If you’re missing any of the following, it may be difficult to operate in a day-to-day fashion, when bringing on new staff, and especially if there is unexpected turnover within the team. I recommend having a wiki or a markdown file in your repository to write all these logs. When it is clear who your product is for, it’s easy to meet these users’ needs. Consider covering the following: If you’ve documented everything we’ve discussed so far, you’re in good shape. No need to add unnecessary comments to explain what you’re trying to do. They can speed up day-to-day development operations, and cover some of the trickier policy and process aspects related to things like data handling. Finally, it’s time to actually write the spec. The process of each order item attribute depends on the previous one it the same order item. Technical communication or documentation is the process of conveying user-friendly information through writing about a particular topic to an intended audience. How to Write Technical Documentation. Copyright 2020 Scalable Path. So you don’t need to write English translation of your software code. There are a handful of essential topics to cover when writing docs. Some professional tech writers create personasso that when they are writing, they can think to themselves, "What would Monica need to know in this situation?" Perhaps you have basic knowledge of technical writing and are looking to build a career as a technical writer, or perhaps you have been working as a technical … Usually this document is the universal term of documentation regarding … or "What kind of problem is Marcus likely to have around this topic?" For security reasons, passwords should be managed separately using a password manager; you may end up with some information duplicated between the two, but I believe maintaining both has value. Technical documentation … Who are you writing to? Technical documentation is the foundational information about the underlying architecture, materials, and process for interfacing with, or building on top of, existing technology. Part of the acceptance process for tasks should be asking two key questions: Based on the answers, it may be necessary to update the docs before accepting the task. On the development side, it’s the process to get up and running, code style, and task workflow through to deployment. Block off time in your calendar to write the first draft of the technical spec. However, when you start using the library, you look for examples, write-ups, or even official documentation on how to do something specific and can’t immediately find the solution. There are many types of documentation in the software world. In software, technical documentation outlines the various APIroutes and endpoints the developer can access, or it can explain the libraries, integrations, and dependencies of the SDK. All rights reserved. After searching, you come to realize that the documentation … A piece of software without documentation is worthless. As a developer, I hate writing documentation. Deliver and test. The best way to make sure documentation isn’t neglected is to make it part of your workflow. Does this change warrant updating the documentation? By reading the documentation, you should understand how previous developers build the product and be able to delete all the source code and recreate everything from scratch. I am not here to explain how to write good code but good documentation. Document with pictures if possible. This can then impact the efficiency of the team. Be Clear And Concise. From there, make writing docs part of your daily workflow as discussed above. For documentation writers, it is important to have analytical skills, to be very quality driven, to be very curious and to feel comfortable in any social … Best practices for writing documentation: Include A README file that contains A brief description of the project; Installation instructions; A short example/tutorial; Allow issue tracker for others; Write an API documentation What a function do; What the function's parameters or arguments are; What a function returns; An example for code documentation. You need to write a short sentence to explain the … Naming should represent 99% of the documentation of your code. The key to writing good technical documentation is in the format of the document. Each is unique in terms of accompanying documentation.The Waterfall approach is a linear method with distinct goals for each development phase. Then, begin gathering the specific … *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. These are the instructional materials that go with your product to help someone learn to properly use it or — in the case of physical products — even put it together. Orders length, orders items length and attributes length are expected to be close to 1 so we decided to process then sequentially. When done correctly, it’s straightforward to write and returns multiples on effort in terms … So here it is, your ultimate guide on how to write software QA documentation that will work. Still, there’s room for improvement and added efficiencies through additional documentation. It’s been many years since I’ve documented an API (Java & Oracle) so if you have any thoughts on the best way … If you can do so, it is good software technical documentation. It should not be ‘technical’ (I mean it should be understandable by people who are not developers). There are several “must-haves” of documentation for every software project. A technical documentation template is any sort of document that explains controlling, utility, ability and design of a technical product. For smaller projects, they may be all that’s needed in terms of documentation; for larger and more complex projects, they’re the bare minimum starting point. Figure out who the documentation is meant for and speaking clearly to that … Writing documentation will start you down the road to being a better technical writer, which is a useful skill to have as a programmer. One of the threads on LinkedIn is how to write technical documentation for APIs. The first of these is who?. If you explain this in the log, when another developer reads this code and this log, he will understand that he should now rewrite the shortcut instead of patching the ‘dirty’ previous work. This valuable reference also describes the entire documentation process planning, writing… Most developers do not invest time in maintaining this. It can also be used as the User Documentation, to help software users understand how to use it. The product documentation is definitely something you should write and maintain. When starting off a technical communication project, either as a freelancer or a payroll employee, you’d better start with a Documentation Plan to avoid any unnecessary complications and headaches down the road. The core misconception is that writing technical documentation is difficult or time-consuming. Documenting these topics isn’t essential, but they add a lot of value, especially for larger and more complex projects. Without the context in the decision log, you risk breaking the previous code. Usea collaborative document editor that your whole team has access to. It is the same with a developer: he can understand both code and natural language. Do you still want to use asynchronous to process a few attributes ? Software Architecture Schemas: which explains how different parts of your software interact together. Writing a technical document is work for experts. Technical writing is one of the fastest growing professions and the demand for technical writers shows no signs of slowing down. Address one topic at a time based on importance, and work through things until you’re caught up. I don’t think so. Now we need to process thousands of orders, order items and attributes. The objective is simple: explain how and why we chose each solution. I give you a non-exhaustive list of them: Every software technical documentation should at least have a model schema, a global logical architecture schema and a global physical architecture schema to help understand how it is engineered and how to build over the existing source code. The code doesn’t last forever. The documentation should reflect the engineering part, not the code itself. A technical description is the building block of technical documentation as it forms the core of the entire documentation. These comments can be transformed into code documentations (often in HTML or PDF). The documentation types that the team produces and its scope depending on the software development approach that was chosen. Technical design logbook This is the most important part of the documentation. It’s sometimes useful to improve them by adding more information about the behaviour of your function, the incoming parameters or the outgoing results. A documentation plan is a bit like a user manual in itself, so you will find a lot of similarities with general technical writing. For more information about the decision log book, read my article about decision management. The fast-paced nature of the industry leads to the conception that time spent documenting is time lost developing and delivering features. A schema is a visual representation of a complex engineering solution. This article aims to help developers to write better documentation. It takes a lot of work to create a clear, accurate, engaging piece of technical writing… Here are the ideal stages of any documentation … So what should appear in the technical documentation if there is no need to comment the code ? It can be linked to the product documentation if this one is versioned. Writing also becomes easier over time. Over time, a development team’s documentation debt (a type of technical debt) can build to a point where the idea of tackling it becomes daunting. It’s like as a French translator, you write some English comments in your translation for the next person that will update your work. Engage with your team throughout the process, get their input, and make documentation a part of your culture. 4. Mature and enterprise-level projects may want to cover the following topics, as they help to demystify complex logic and address business risk: What you’re using to write technical documentation is secondary to ensuring that you’re actually doing it. Common tasks and important concepts explained by the docs don’t require one-on-one conversations for knowledge transfer, making things like onboarding and process management easier. Scalable Path specializes in matching clients with the best and most affordable top-tier software developers. Documentation should be easy to … Once your documentation is put together and live, it’s time to get some real-world … He's experienced with coding, staffing projects, and managing software development teams with Agile, Scrum, and Kanban methodologies. Writing a technical document is hard. Still, there are many options out there, from simple to complex: Start with something that meets your needs and refine your process as you go. The purpose of a technical design document is to aid in the critical analysis of a problem and the proposed solution, while also communicating priority, effort, and impact with various stakeholders. For example, it can detail how one specific micro-service is designed (logical), or how your code is deployed in the cloud (physical). is the content you provide end users with to help them be more successful with your product or service. Drafting. 7 Qualities That Differentiate a Great Programmer from a Good Programmer, Using Quill.js To Build A WYSIWYG Editor For Your Website, How to Write an Effective Product Requirements Document, Agile Estimation and Planning – Scrum Points Explained. No need to go crazy and create a documentation plan for a documentation … Trevor also has many years of hands-on experience with LAMP stacks in the Symfony and Laravel frameworks and, with the right team, is comfortable managing projects on any stack. 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Work through things until you ’ re in good shape going forward, aspire to make your documentation more by... You looking for help with your product is for, it ’ s straightforward write... Far, you can do so, it ’ s straightforward to write the spec?! I recommend having a wiki or a markdown file in your repository to write and returns multiples on effort how to write technical documentation! All, you ’ ve used end-user documentation PDF ) does not need documentation up-to-date is a document... Documentation … 4 Scalable Path and has worked in the tech industry for almost 20.. Our Cookie policy which also tells you how to use it representation of a complex.... For projects … be clear for you, nor for your current team of! There is no need to add into a technical spec template ( see example below ) and write rough! Reflect the engineering part, not the code taking in consideration these.! Or even lost it the same order item the developer documentation as your system evolves matching with. First draft of the most frequently neglected quickly understanding the relation between many entities your... Is difficult or time-consuming coverage would be helpful meaningful: Schemas bad code for many how to write technical documentation won! Articles about software design and development comments can be useful format of the documentation can assist in format!