Chapter 1: Understanding your audience
Corg.ly: One month to launch
The curse of knowledge
Creating an initial sketch of your users
Validate your user understanding
Condensing user research findings
Creating a friction log
Summary
Chapter 2: Planning your documentation
Corg.ly: Creating a plan
Plans and patterns
Content types
Code comments
READMEs
Getting started documentation
Conceptual documentation
Procedural documentation
Reference documentation
Planning your documentation
Summary
Chapter 3: Drafting documentation
Corg.ly: First drafts
Confronting the blank page (or screen)
Setting yourself up for writing success
Creating your outline
Creating your draft
Writing for skimming
Getting unstuck
Working from templates
Finishing your first draft
Summary
Chapter 4: Editing documentation
Corg.ly: Editing content
Editing to meet your user’s needs
Different approaches to editing
Creating an editing process
Receiving and integrating feedback
Giving good feedback
Summary
Chapter 5: Integrating code samples
Corg.ly: Showing how it works
Using code samples
Types of code samples
Principles of good code samples
Designing code samples
Tooling for code samples
Summary
Chapter 6: Adding visual content
Corg.ly: Worth a thousand words
When words aren’t enough
Why visual content is hard to create
Using screenshots
Common types of diagrams
Drawing diagrams
Creating video content
Reviewing visual content
Maintaining visual content
Summary
Chapter 7: Publishing documentation
Corg.ly: Ship it!
Putting your content out there
Building a content release process
Creating a publishing timeline
Planning for the future
Summary
Chapter 8: Gathering and integrating feedback
Corg.ly: Initial feedback
Listening to your users
Creating feedback channels
Converting feedback into action
Summary
Chapter 9: Measuring documentation quality
Corg.ly: Tuesday after the launch
Is my documentation any good?
Understanding documentation quality
Creating a strategy for analytics
Tips for using document metrics
Summary
Chapter 10: Organizing documentation
Corg.ly: The next release
Organizing documentation for your readers
Helping your readers find their way
Organizing your documentation
Summary
Chapter 11: Maintaining and deprecating documentation
Corg.ly: A few releases later
Maintaining up-to-date documentation
Planning for maintainability
Automating documentation maintenance
Removing content from your docset
Summary
Appendix A: When to hire an expert
Meeting a new set of user needs
Increasing support deflections
Managing large documentation releases
Refactoring an information architecture
Internationalization and localization
Versioning documentation with software
Accepting user contributions to documentation
Open-sourcing documentation
Appendix B: Resources
Courses
Templates
Style guides
Automation tools
Visual content tools and frameworks
Blogs and research
Books
Communities
Bibliography
Index
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