How can you create effective product documentation or knowledge base articles?

Knowing your audience is the basis for creating articles. For example, when we create product documents, we first start thinking about the personas who are going to read them. In our case, they often are developers, managers and business owners. Therefore, we created 3 different types of documentation and one introduction that guides the audience to quickly choose the document they need. If you start with your audience in mind, what their tasks are, their pain and what they are looking for, the documentation and articles become straightforward to write.

Don't overlook the importance of documentation during the customer onboarding process. Schedules can be challenging to align, and new users will appear as adoption grows or internal teams expand/backfill. Having quick, easily accessible, entry-level product videos, articles, and guides can help new users get started at their own pace and can help make the first meeting with a customer success manager more productive, as the customer is likely to join with questions or feedback that can lead to a more engaging session.

KCS (Knowledge Centered Support) is a valuable framework for the creation, use, updating and curation of Knowledgebase content. What's really impactful about it is that it's not a separate function within support- it's part of every process and workflow, such that content is created and consumed when needed, by the people that use it, in a real-time, living content context.

The documentation should act as a ready reckoner for others and it's usefulness should be marked and communicated to the originator. An open review system where contributors should be explained with reference documents should be the norm. Audio visual aids are a great way and interactive videos help to shorten the learning curve. I too encourage the teams to publish the documentation with their names as authors to ensure ownership and sense of responsibility to create valuable and informative documents which are quoted as reference subsequently. No documentation is completed without a configuration management layer where edit, archival and read only rights should be maintained while tapes or necessary restore mechanism be included.

Incorporating a feedback loop mechanism within product documentation or knowledge base ensures it evolves with changing customer expectations and business landscapes, maintaining its relevance and effectiveness over time.