Search-First Writing for Developers
summary
Documentation optimized for search and built from real forum and support data cuts repeated support and speeds user success. Harvest questions from Stack Overflow, Slack/IRC and support logs, run a rough frequency analysis, and answer the top 20 questions as testable task-based procedures. Measure what people look for with Google Analytics, index pages using user language, host on Read the Docs, and use Gorilla for quick sketchy mockups; result: fewer duplicate tickets and faster task completion.
AI-written summary · about
chapters (38)
- 0:00Introduction
- 1:39Using Software
- 2:05Software that makes you feel
- 2:20Emotion
- 2:51Nobody likes reading documentation
- 3:28People are angry
- 4:49What makes documentation better
- 5:08About 10 of developers like writing documentation
- 6:34How to write documentation
- 7:20Best way to get topnotch documentation
- 7:41Who can afford it
- 8:06What we will do
- 8:17What questions people are asking
- 8:32Target users
- 10:07Support
- 10:37Categories
- 10:52Distribution
- 11:22Analytics
- 11:43Answer the question
- 12:19Make answers findable
- 12:35Who recognizes this
- 13:36I once spent a whole summer
- 13:50Anybody ever had that job
- 14:16Analytics Part 2
- 15:08Search Engine Optimization
- 16:41FAQ
- 17:07Group Answers
- 17:37TaskBased Writing
- 18:04Establish Where You Are
- 18:34Who Knows Carmen
- 19:07Imperative
- 20:23Testable
- 20:42Whats Next
- 21:13Most Important Part
- 21:35Sheep
- 22:16Video Rant
- 23:53Comics
- 24:05QA
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