Thinking Outside the Book: Wikis for Writing and Delivering Documentation

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Thinking Outside the Book: Wikis for writing and delivering documentation

Documentation. It's a necessary evil.

These are the topics that I'm going to discuss in this presentation.

These pieces of glass represent various formats in which we deliver documentation. PDFs. Printed manuals. Online help. Web-based documentation. All good formats, but mired in a sometimes unnecessary level of complexity. On top of that, updates to the documentation often can't be made and deployed quickly.

Adam Hyde, the founder of FLOSS Manuals, mentioned to me that he noticed a lot of what he called tool fetishism in the technical writing world. I have to agree with him there.

A wiki can be as powerful a way for writing and delivering documentation as any of the so-called standard documentation tools out there.

According to wiki consultant Stewart Mader, 37% of all content on a corporate wiki is documentation of some sort. Why not leverage that even more?

Who uses a wiki for documentation? Here's a sampling.

How are those companies, and others, using wikis? Here are the kinds of documentation that are being put on a wiki, or written and published with one.

Structure. It's an important factor to consider when using a wiki for documentation.

Getting documentation into a wiki is relatively easy. And you're not limited to only using the wiki's built-in editor.

Some technical writers liken a wiki to a black hole. They say it's easy to get content into one, but nigh impossible to get that content out. Untrue.

Most wikis support output to some or all of these formats. That support may be built in, or might require you to install plugins.

The FLOSS Manuals project is an interesting one, and not just because its made using a wiki to write and publish documentation something of an art.

A wiki is an ideal vehicle for collaborating with the readers of your documentation. They have some very valid insights and experiences, so why not take advantage of them?

If they start using a wiki, technical writers will need to shift gears. It's not just a shift in tools, but also a shift in thinking and doing.

There are several keys to the successful use of a wiki for documentation. These keys include structure, the ability to baseline the documentation, making the wiki attractive to users, and having solid content. The last is the most important.

Are wikis ideal for every documentation task? No, they're not. There are a few situations in which you wouldn't want to use a wiki for documentation.

Wikis are a very powerful and flexible tool for delivering any kind of information. And they're especially good for delivering documentation.

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Thinking Outside the Book: Wikis for Writing and Delivering Documentation - Presentation Transcript

Thinking Outside the Book: Wikis for writing and delivering documentation Scott Nesbitt Partner, DMN Communications
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