How do you evaluate and improve the usability and readability of your technical documents?

1. Understand Your Readers and Their Intentions As a technical writer for several developer-focused startups, I have learned that my target audience love it when I write like a developer addressing other developers. By this, I mean I am using the words they use at work daily, such as "environments, version control, runtimes, and so on. If you want your technical content to be useable and readable, speak the language of your audience to teach throughout your essay. The usability test is met when your readers get solutions to what they want to solve. For instance, if I am writing a technical content on how to use Fastify, I have to write clear tutorials of what Fastify is all about and how developers can build with it.

To make your technical documents usable: 1. Understand how a user wants to use the product by stepping into their shoes. 2. Structure content organized into sections and navigable through a table of contents with links and search functionality. 3. It is important to use short sentences and paragraphs when writing concisely. 4. It is essential to ensure accuracy, relevance, and completeness. Also, outdated publications should be flagged and, if archived, linked to their most current versions, if available. 5. Easy-to-read fonts, navigation links, clear images, and clear layouts are essential for a strong visual appeal. It is important to keep your visuals as concise as your writing.

In technical writing, it's important to convey a clear message using precise and simple sentences. To do this, you can - break down the gathered information into bullet points - use sentences in the active voice - include diagrams to effectively convey the message

You should use a consistent set of text styles, etc., in your technical documents. These styles should be designed to be easy to read, The consistent use of these styles enables: - Organisation branding - a more consistent and professional finish to be applied across all of your documents. You still need to consider readers having visual disabilities, of various types. So you need to ensure the use of colour is limited, etc. The nature of the document may need to be structured. As a result a formal consistent structure, e.g. with table of contents, multiple distinct sections, etc., should be defined and used where appropriate. Utilising pre-defined document (etc.) templates, containing the standard styles will simplify consistency.

If you need to test your document it is preferable for someone else to do the testing. This is because the author may (inadvertently) complete steps they believe/ remember, rather than follow the documented steps. The longer and more complex/ technical the document / topic covered. The greater the need to test. In part to ensure everything that needs to be covered is clearly covered. With no assumptions about the readers technical skill being made (when appropriate). Testing may include proof reading. Though it is important to note that testing does NOT replace proof reading.

One quick check that I do once I have written the first draft is use Chat GPT. Upload my article to Chat GPT or any AI tool and ask the question "Who do you think are the target audience for this article?" Trust me this does wonders. One more work around is, paste your article and input the target audience that the article was intended. Ask the AI tool if it justifies. Tried and tested :)

IME, formatting for readability and accessibility is important. You also want to pay attention to navigability in your document, e.g., Table of Contents, Figures, Tables, etc.