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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