> They do not read any documentation I write about me or my software.
It’s a vicious cycle. If you have bad documentation, people won’t read it, but without people reading the documentation no one wants to spend time writing it.
Even when you have good documentation (which by the way is decided by the readers, not the writers) you still need to educate users constantly that it exists and should be referred to.
I refer customers to documentation that is well written and almost always correct on a daily basis, and as soon as they understand where to look and know there aren’t gaps, they’ll start using it (because if there’s gaps and they need to contact support anyway, you might as well skip the doc step completely and get a correct response instead).
Documentation is one of those things that aren’t obviously necessary enough for most stake holders behind the scenes, and it only starts to hurt when you’re at the point where you wish someone started documenting a year ago.
It’s a vicious cycle. If you have bad documentation, people won’t read it, but without people reading the documentation no one wants to spend time writing it.
Even when you have good documentation (which by the way is decided by the readers, not the writers) you still need to educate users constantly that it exists and should be referred to.
I refer customers to documentation that is well written and almost always correct on a daily basis, and as soon as they understand where to look and know there aren’t gaps, they’ll start using it (because if there’s gaps and they need to contact support anyway, you might as well skip the doc step completely and get a correct response instead).
Documentation is one of those things that aren’t obviously necessary enough for most stake holders behind the scenes, and it only starts to hurt when you’re at the point where you wish someone started documenting a year ago.