Getting out of the box

Anybody can write - right?
Sure.
But do you want just anybody writing the help or the administrator's guide for your product?

Your product development team has worked hard to bring a vision into being. You wouldn't have spent the time and effort on it if you didn't believe - passionately - that the project could meet your customers' needs in a way no other product can do. Your team wouldn't have put their hearts and souls into developing this product unless they believed in it. Doesn't your team deserve to have their brilliant work showcased? To put that another way: Shouldn't you give this product the best possible shot at success?

Great product documentation shows your customers how simple it is to use your product, and makes them want to try out all its features. Because as complex and sophisticated as the design may be, as elegant as the code may be, what's going to sell your product is the perception that it's robust, reliable, and easy to use. Great product documentation gives your customers the confidence to get familiar with the product - and once they've cleared that hurdle, the product looks a lot easier to use.

What does great product documentation look like? Like Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, you probably know it when you see it. But what is it that you see?

In great documentation, you see little about the product's capabilities or design philosophy. Instead you see information about how people can use the product to accomplish what they want to do. It's about your customers first.

It's easy to make the business case for top-notch product documentation - be it installation drawings, administrator's guides, quick tip sheets, or help: If that's part of the package, you'll win more competitive evaluations, and you'll spend less on technical support. And amazing as it may be, it takes fewer words and less time to communicate the people-centric information that your customers need than the design-centric material that they dread - so even the direct cost of creating great product documentation is lower than the direct cost of creating lower-quality material.

Move your product documentation out of the box. Put it on the winner's platform - along with your great product.