"Subclassing and Composition – A Pythonic Tour of Trade-Offs", Hynek Schlawack
2023 Challenges and Opportunities Impacting Technical Documentation Team Capability
1. Challenges Impacting
Technical Documentation
Team Capacity
A quick look at the results from the 2023 Technical
Documentation Staffing Survey conducted by The
Content Wrangler, Content Science, and the Center
for Information Development Management
heretto.com
4. What were the goals of the research?
1
How was it collected?
2
How big are our teams?
3
What types of content do we create?
4
Are we using structured content and data?
5
quick
look
ahead
5. Are we as capable as we need to be?
6
What are the top challenges we face?
7
What opportunities do we see?
8
quick
look
ahead
19. 49% DO TODAY
Structured content
10% PLAN TO
5% WANT TO
1
2
3
and component content management system
22% NO PLANS TO
20. Structured content
RESISTANCE TO CHANGE
1
UNABLE TO SHOW ROI
2
RESOURCE CONSTAINTS
3
Why some firms aren’t producing
NO BUSINESS NEED
4
and using a component content management system
21. Structured content
Anecdotes relating to
“It would be easier to get my staff excited
about structured authoring if they didn’t
perceive the tools as overly-complicated and
more challenging than what they are
accustomed to using.”
Technical Documentation Manager,
Automotive Manufacturer
22. Structured content
Anecdotes relating to
“Moving from unstructured content to
structured XML transformed our team and
made us far more capable. My staff, if they
had the choice, would never go back to the
old way of content creation.”
Information Experience Director,
SaaS Platform Provider
23. Structured content
Good news / bad news about
GOOD NEWS
Most struggled to accurately
define what it is and had
limited knowledge about
benefits of adopting it
0% ‘what is structured content?’
Previous years: 7-16%
BAD NEWS
Telephone interviews
25. Capability
”We’re building the capability to deliver
individualized technical documentation
experiences that will help us stay ahead of
our competition.”
Content Operations Director,
Financial Services Firm
27. Capability
Problems with
Assessment
“Capability estimation can be influenced by
‘overconfidence bias’ — leading us to think
we’re doing good enough when we’re not
doing as well as we could be. Evidence-
informed decision-making is key.”
Technical Documentation Lead,
Medical Devices Company
31. Challenges
Additional
Preventing on time delivery
21% WRONG SOFTWARE FOR THE JOB
8
9
7 23% LACK OF LEADERSHIP SUPPORT
23% CROSS-FUNCTIONAL COLLABORATION DIFFICULTIES
36. Sales
heretto.com
Opportunities
If we want potential customers to consider
our product an answer to their needs
1
When a problem has
been recognized
2
When prospects are
looking for ways to
overcome their problem
(and we do!)
Our content needs to be available
37. Sales
heretto.com
Opportunities
1
Providing content that
enables sales
2
Educating them about
our products; preparing
them to sell the value
We can help sales by:
3
Serving as a bridge between
engineering and sales
72% of B2B buyers touch 3 pieces of product
content before connecting with sales
Source: Demand Generation Report
38. Sales
Opportunities
1
Conveying the most
important product info
2
Providing demo videos to
share with prospective
customers
We can help sales by:
CREATE DEMONSTRATIONS
Explainer videos on Have been creating demos for
software vendors
42. Customer satisfaction
heretto.com
Opportunities
Zero-click search engine results
Displays the answer to a query at the top of the search
results page — does not result in a click
1
Marketers: Mixed feelings
about zero-click searches
2
Customer satisfaction
managers love them
43. heretto.com
Source: Search Engine Land
1 in 4 searches for
how-to info do not
result in clicks
Which likely results in
fewer calls to support
Customer satisfaction
Opportunities
Positive impact
on customer
retention
45. Customer satisfaction
heretto.com
Anecdotes from leaders
“Making our technical documentation
machine-readable and SEO-friendly
significantly boosts awareness of our brand
and drives traffic to our knowledge center.”
Information Development Lead,
Scientific Publishing House
46. Customer satisfaction
heretto.com
Anecdotes from leaders
“Exposing knowledge center content on the
web is a no brainer. By configuring Google
Analytics to monitor our traffic, we prove our
help site outperforms our marketing site.”
Vice President of User Experience,
Automation Company
48. Additional opportunities
heretto.com
Worth recognizing
Make science-informed decisions about
how we present and deliver our content
Avoid focus-depleting approaches like context-switching
IMPROVING API DOCS EXPERIENCES
feature code alongside how-to info
49. Customer retention
heretto.com
Opportunities
Bad content experiences erode brand loyalty
86% of consumers will leave a brand they
trusted after 2-3 unacceptable experiences
Source: Emplifi
1
Highlighting new features
and how they work
2
Helping existing
customers get the full
value of their investment
We can help retention by:
50. Customer retention
heretto.com
What consumers say
1
Working across silos to
ensure product information
is coherent
2
Providing a change log to
announce new features
We can help retention by:
74% of consumers are unlikely to return to a
product knowledge center if it’s difficult to
quickly and easily find the info they need
Source: 2023 Consumer Preferences and Expectations Survey
51. Customer retention
heretto.com
What consumers say
87% of consumers prefer to
resolve issues themselves
when confronting a challenge
Source: 2023 Consumer Preferences and Expectations Survey
52. Customer retention
What consumers say
43% of consumers would rather
clean a toilet than contact a
product manufacturers’
telephone support center
Source: 2023 Consumer Preferences and Expectations Survey
53. Message is clear
Our work is essential to the
success of our organizations
“Technical documentation experiences can
make or break an organization. When you
get it right, and you invest in focusing your
efforts on the customers, everybody wins.”
Director of Customer Satisfaction,
Insurance services company
54. Our value
According to one leader
“Documentation is the most under-valued
and under-appreciated asset we produce.
It’s time we connect the dots between
content and customer experience and
ensure leaders see the value.”
Global Director of Customer Success and Experience,
Travel Information Publisher
55.
56. Challenges Impacting
Technical Documentation
Team Capacity
A quick look at the results from the 2023 Technical
Documentation Staffing Survey conducted by The
Content Wrangler, Content Science, and the Center
for Information Development Management
heretto.com