How do you measure the impact and value of software documentation for your customers and stakeholders?

Documentation should align closely with your overall vision and brand when it is intended for customers. If customers will consume it, it’s now part of their journey and should enhance it. The value becomes not only the content but the experience. The documentation should be as seamless with the product as possible, effectively augmenting UX.

It's imperative that companies understand the value of documentation in various contexts. For example, when it comes to Internal Tools development with a platform like Salesforce, taking precious time from Engineers to do documentation seems like a burden. However, as you continue building out the product roadmap, you will inevitably accrue technical debt - the business will outgrow solutions that were previously deployed on those features will become technical debt, which slows down future release cycles. And cleaning up that technical debt becomes significantly easier if you have proper documentation. Part of defining documentation goals requires approaching it with a long-term view, in the same way you do with the core product roadmap.

Modern analytical tools provide vast amounts of metrics, but it's crucial to focus on the 4-8 KPIs that are strategically important to your business and can be easily tracked regularly. Begin by deciding on a starting point (Day 0) and consistently measure progress over a defined period. This allows you to track specific metrics and observe trends, providing a comprehensive view of your documentation’s performance. Where possible - estimate the $ values - either for new business or cost savings. This translates abstract metrics into tangible financial benefits that stakeholders can easily understand.

It is often important to have customer buy in on these metrics. To do this, you can have focus group meetings, defining objectives ahead of time with sample metrics in documentation. Use the focus group to collect domain-specific customer favorite metrics.

We use surveys, interviews, and analytics to collect relevant data based on those goals. Then we analyze trends to identify gaps and create dashboards to demonstrate value. Focusing on aligning documentation to business objectives has improved our customer satisfaction.

I use statistical analysis and data visualization tools to identify trends in our documentation metrics. Comparing the data to our goals reveals where we need to improve. Clear analysis and communication of documentation performance has increased customer satisfaction by demonstrating how our docs support their needs.

I've learned effective communication of documentation value increases customer satisfaction. Using clear data visualizations and highlighting how our documentation supports their needs has improved adoption. Addressing any gaps demonstrated by the data analysis further aligns our docs to their goals. Proactive communication of documentation achievements is key.

When we do a good job in articulating what the software does and how it does, the number of customer enquiries will come down. You can also analyze the inquiries over a period of time to see what area of documentations needs to be beefed up. Plan to provide documentation in various forms, for example written documentation, illustrations, videos etc.