The document summarizes the results of a survey on technical documentation teams. It found that most teams are small (84% have 24 or fewer staff) and face significant challenges like resource constraints. While many teams are moving to structured content, resistance to change prevents some from doing so. Top opportunities for teams include helping marketing, sales, and customer satisfaction by optimizing content. Overall, the survey shows documentation is essential but teams still need more support and capabilities to meet business needs.

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

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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

6. Research goals
Identify challenges facing tech docs teams
1

7. STAFFING ISSUES
heretto.com
Research goals
CAPABILTY ISSUES
CAPACITY LIMITATIONS
RESOURCE CONSTRAINTS

8. Data collection
Online survey / interviews with select respondents
2

9. ONLINE SURVEY
Data collection
INTERVIEWS
EXTERNAL DATA

10. Team size
Size often correlates with content development capability
3

11. 84% 24 or FEWER
Team sizes
10% 25-50
6% 51-499

12. Content types
We’re producing an increasing number of content types
4

13. 82% USER MANUALS
Content types
79% RELEASE NOTES
76% ONLINE HELP
1
2
3
Most produced

14. Content types
64% QUICK REFS
58% API DOCS
45% UX CONTENT
4
5
6
43% INTERNAL DOCS
41% KB ARTICLES
39% TUTORIALS
7
8
9
Most produced

15. 5% TECHNICAL REPORTS
Content types
9% CHATBOT CONTENT
9% WHITE PAPERS
1
2
3
Least produced

16. 34% ONBOARDING
Content types
32% TECH SPECS
24% TRAINING
Additional
11% VIDEO DOCS
2017
64% VIDEO DOCS
2020

17. PODCASTS
Content types
Additional

18. Structured content
Moving from nice-to-have to a requirement for success
5

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

24. Capability
Building capabilities is something leadership supports
6

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

26. Capability
On time new product releases AVERAGE
7.5

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

28. Top challenges
7 Challenges are opportunities to build capability

29. Challenges
77% RESOURCE CONSTRAINTS
1
48% STAFFING ISSUES
3
Top three
Preventing on time delivery
91% FINANCIAL
INVESTMENT
NEEDED
2 57% TIME CONSTRAINTS

30. 4
Challenges
Additional
Preventing on time delivery
40% WORKING WITH SMEs
26% CHANGING REQUIREMENTS
5
6
33% PRIORITIZATION CONFLICTS

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

32. Challenges
Additional
Preventing on time delivery
4% REGULATORY COMPLIANCE OBSTACLES
7% SYSTEM INTEGRATION CHALLENGES
17% LACK OF CLEAR GOALS AND EXPECTATIONS

33. Opportunities
We’re an essential contributor to business success
8

34. Partnership
heretto.com
MARKETING
1
CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
3
2 SALES
Three
Opportunities

35. Marketing
heretto.com
Opportunities
Demand generation
Calls to action in product documentation

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

39. Customer satisfaction
heretto.com
Opportunities
Optimizing content for search
Leveraging semantic markup: FAQ and How-To

40. Customer satisfaction
heretto.com
Optimizing content for search
FAQ MARKUP

41. Customer satisfaction
Optimizing content for search
HOW-TO MARKUP

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

44. Customer satisfaction
heretto.com
Opportunities
1
When a problem has
been recognized
2
When exploring ways to
overcome problem
Providing answers at time of need

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

47. Additional opportunities
heretto.com
Worth recognizing
Educate prospects about the
basics of using our products
91% of consumers would self-educate if materials met their needs
Source: Zendesk
VIDEO TUTORIALS
that include use cases

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

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