How do you use feedback to improve your writing skills and documentation quality?

1 Choose your feedback sources wisely

When seeking feedback for your documentation, it’s important to consider who can provide constructive, specific, and actionable insights. Subject matter experts (SMEs) can help verify the accuracy and completeness of technical information, while editors can check grammar, spelling, style, and formatting. Peers can review the content from a different perspective and offer suggestions for improvement. Additionally, users can test the documentation and report any issues or confusion they encounter.

2 Use different feedback methods and tools

When collecting and managing feedback, you may need to use different methods and tools depending on your feedback sources. For example, comments and annotations can be used in a document or online platform, such as Google Docs or GitHub. Additionally, surveys and questionnaires can be used to ask specific questions about the documentation, while interviews and focus groups allow for interaction with feedback providers. Finally, analytics and metrics can measure how your documentation is accessed, viewed, searched, and used.

3 Review and prioritize feedback

Once you have collected feedback, it is essential to review it with care and make decisions based on your evaluation. Ask yourself if the feedback is clear, consistent, and supported by evidence or examples. Is it relevant, valid, and applicable to your documentation? Is it constructive, respectful, and helpful for your improvement? Does it align with your documentation goals, standards, and guidelines? And finally, is the feedback urgent, important, or nice to have?

4 Apply feedback and document changes

After prioritizing feedback, you should apply it to your documentation and document the changes. However, you should not make changes randomly or arbitrarily; instead, use a systematic and transparent process. To do this, create a backup or copy of your original document before making any changes. Additionally, track and mark the changes you make using tools such as version control, change logs, or revision history. Make sure to explain the rationale and impact of the changes you make using comments, notes, or summaries. Lastly, communicate the changes you make to your feedback providers and stakeholders using tools such as email, notifications, or reports.