User Experience at IU

Too often, documentation is an afterthought—something to be done only if there’s time (there’s never time). Many lean teams are tasked with balancing multiple projects under tight deadlines, and it’s often documentation that gets cut back so that a project can be delivered on time.

It’s unfortunate that documentation tends to be a low priority, as it’s one of your service’s best productivity, marketing, and support tools. This page lays out 6 major benefits of investing in great documentation for your service.

Documentation helps yourself 6 months from now

If your team is like most, you have more than one major project you’re busily working on. Sometimes, one project will demand your attention for a while, and by the time you return to the others, you’ve forgotten how they work. Similarly, you might leave a project on its own after launch, returning only a few times a quarter to fix bugs.

When you need to get reacquainted with your own service a week, a month, or a year from now, you’ll be happy your past self had the foresight to write things down.

Documentation helps the other members of your team, present and future

The other members of your team each have their own responsibilities that might only require them to use your service every once in a while. Likewise, new people may join your team—including your successor should you pursue new opportunities—who have never used your service before.

Writing documentation helps the other members of your team get up to speed on their own, making them more productive and reducing the number of times you have to put your own work on hold to help guide them.

Documentation helps identify parts of your service that might be too complicated

Writing documentation is an opportunity for you to try and explain your service in the simplest terms possible.

If you’re having trouble distilling your service into easy-to-understand instructions, it might be a sign that some parts of your service are too complicated. Take another look at your service and consider how some parts might be simplified.

Documentation cuts down on support requests

Most of the calls, texts, and emails to support result from the same handful of issues cropping up over and over again.

Documentation is an opportunity to put answers to these questions front-and-center, allowing developers to use your service without having to stop what they’re doing to pick up a phone or fill out a form. This is great for developers, who feel smart and productive, and great for your team, who have fewer support requests to deal with.

Documentation encourages adoption of your service

Poor documentation is one of the biggest barriers to getting developer buy-in for your service.

If developers find it difficult to learn how to use your service, they’ll work around it, use it incorrectly, or—in many cases—avoid using it altogether, even if your service is a great solution to their problem.

Documentation builds trust

Documentation is often a developer’s first impression of your service, and developers project the experience they have reading your documentation onto your service and your team.

Documentation that is clear, concise, and comprehensive shows that you care about the people using your service, which builds trust and fosters goodwill towards your team.