Test Your Technical Documentation
Technical documentation is one of the most important aspects of any workflow, especially in the spheres of IT, engineering, and finances. Many other businesses require comprehensive manuals as well. A company may need different types of technical documentation for different audiences: for example, technical documentation for developers, other project teams, and users. That leads to the necessity of creating high-quality documentation. And this level of quality can be guaranteed only by testing technical documentation. Its importance lies in assuring that the information in the document is correct, well-organized, relevant, and understandable for readers. In other words, technical documentation testing is one of the aspects that are vital for any project’s success and stable development of a product.
How to Test Technical Documentation?
Technical documentation testing is a serious task that involves the work of an expert or even a team of experts who are responsible for each step. The process itself can be divided into several main parts that describe different sides of a document itself, the information it provides, and its accuracy.
Grammar and Spelling
A technical writer should carefully check grammar and spelling. Technical documentation that contains mistakes seems to be unreliable. It is a great idea to use spellcheckers or ask teammates to check your content in case there is no editor in your company. Besides, when technical documentation is translated from one language to another, there might be a lot of mistakes and inaccuracies. Technical translation is a huge sphere that has its own experts, and one should carefully choose a translator.
Accuracy
Accuracy is probably one of the most important aspects. Accurate content is relevant; there should be no outdated information, and all the additional materials such as tables, screenshots, and graphics should be up to date. For that purpose, technical writers can keep in touch with other teams.
Logical Steps and Sequence of Actions
This aspect mostly refers to user manuals and other types of technical documentation that provide readers with step-by-step instructions. A high-quality instruction can be created only when all the steps are well-thought-out, logical, and do not contradict each other. Logical steps and sequences of actions allow readers to understand the information quickly and complete tasks successfully.
Clarity
This aspect is highly important for all types of audiences: teams and end-users. Clear content is easy-to-understand and unambiguous. A good way to check the clarity of content is to ask someone to read it and provide feedback. Surely, if a person doesn’t understand what should be done and how, the content cannot be called clear.
Navigation
Navigation is a very special aspect of creating technical documentation. Navigation helps readers understand where they are, where and how they can search for relevant information. Carefully thought out navigation implies that users are able to quickly and easily find the information needed.
Here are several navigation elements:
- TOC — the list of headings, chapters, sections in a document;
- Search Bar — used in online documentation. It is a box to type in a query and get the list of all the publications that contain it;
- Breadcrumbs — a navigation element that shows readers where they are and how they got to their current topic;
- See Also — shows additional materials that refer to the topic.
- etc.
There is no universal solution that will tell you which navigation elements are preferable and which work better. It depends on the documentation you write and its purpose, and, of course, on how readers interact with your docs.
Technical documentation testing is vital for any business and product as it allows a technical writer to improve the quality of the content. Documentation testing makes technical documentation more enjoyable. Apart from that, high-quality technical documentation contributes to case deflection and better product adoption. Technical writers may use a checklist to make their docs perfect. In this post, you will find a good example — Health Checklist for Your Technical Documentation.
