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Here’s a question for your team: Do you know how many people visited your documentation site last month? If the answer is, “I have no idea,” you’re not alone. Many technical writing teams operate without any performance metrics, which makes it easy to believe the myth that no one reads the docs. But the data often tells a very different story. People are actively looking for your content. By making your docs findable and tracking their usage, you can prove the value of your work and identify exactly what your users need most. Let's get started.
Does Anyone Actually Read the Docs?
You’ve probably heard a few presumptive generalizations about our industry. A big one out there is that nobody reads product documentation
Before we cry “Well, why the hell not?” together, let’s climb into the brains of someone who might say this.
Technical documentation is, well, technical. It’s a collection of documents that explain:
- Nitty-gritty details
- Under-the-hood specs
- In-the-weeds descriptions
Whatever the product may be, technical documentation is, ideally, all substance without the fluff. It’s meant to show the path of least resistance for a product’s functionality.
So, we understand that it’s useful. But, for users who may be less interested, there are some reasons that would steer them away from the docs.
Can Readers Even Find Your Docs?
Users want answers fast. It’s the Internet-age attention span.
When visitors visit your website, you have less than 10 seconds to deliver the information they need. That’s not even factoring in your documentation yet, that’s just the general navigability of your website. Don’t hide your documentation in an obscure location, make sure it’s easy to locate.
Once they find your documentation, they definitely don’t want to sift through hundreds of pages of docs to find an answer to their one question. Your documentation also needs to be easy to navigate.
Think of it as a grocery store. If all the food was piled in a jumbled grocery cornucopia, you’d be pretty frustrated if you only wanted to find a couple of steaks and a six-pack.
Similarly, if your docs are just a massive PDF download that you expect users to search through for their one or two answers, they’re not going to be pleased. Help them out and organize your answers by developing documentation that’s indexed, searchable, and easily navigable.
How? It starts with designing an effective taxonomy (a fancy word for classification) for your knowledge base.
This means taking a page out of Google’s book and developing documentation that’s its own domain. Whether that’s a dynamic content portal or a simple static website, both options need to be findable and navigable.
Don’t hide your help!
Using a Documentation Hosting Platform
One popular way to make your documentation a dedicated, findable domain is by using a documentation hosting platform. These platforms are built to solve the exact findability and navigation challenges that can prevent users from getting the help they need. They provide the structure and tools necessary to present complex information in a clear, searchable format, turning a potential source of frustration into a valuable resource for your users.
Introducing Read the Docs
A great example of this is Read the Docs, a platform designed specifically for building and hosting documentation. It helps teams create versioned docs directly from their code and integrates with existing Git workflows. This approach allows your team to treat documentation just like code, using tools they already know and making it much simpler to keep information current and accurate. With features like integrated search and pull request previews, it helps streamline the entire documentation lifecycle, from creation to publication, ensuring your users can always find the latest information.
Platform Scale and Community Impact
The influence of Read the Docs extends far beyond its features. The community version of the platform hosts documentation for over 100,000 open source projects at no cost, making it the largest service of its kind. This widespread adoption speaks to its reliability and value. Its impact also led to the creation of the “Write the Docs” conference, which started as a gathering for its users but has since grown into a global community for everyone passionate about software documentation. This shows how a single tool can foster a much larger movement around the importance of clear, accessible technical content.
Are You Speaking Over Your Reader's Head?
Pretend you’re writing for a child, not your colleague.
I’ve previously written about teaching 7th graders who destroyed what thought was an effective lesson plan. Main problem? I was teaching for myself, assuming prior knowledge, rather than for them.
Same. Deal. Here.
It’s tough so separate our knowledge from the content we’re writing. But, it’s our job not to make assumptions and methodically spell everything out down to the smallest details.
Industry jargon? Keep it sparse or non-existent.
Product-specific terms? Keep them to a minimum.
You’ll find accessible language is much more inviting, making your documentation that much more useful.
How to Write Docs People Will Actually Read
Wait, this doesn’t belong here, right?
Yeah, I know. This is divergent from the aforementioned “thou shalt nots” but importantly connected. This catches organizations off guard.
Our Marketing Content Manager, John, was leading a webinar recently with an audience of technical writers. He asked what kind of metrics they saw for their documentation sites.
They didn’t have a clue.
Apparently, it hadn’t occurred to them to grab the person with Google Analytics access to track whether people are looking at their documentation sites. We were able to humble brag about tracking the metrics of our documentation site and found that -- whoa -- people do read the docs site. They read it a lot.
This is really valuable because documentation sites aren’t optimized for the same KPIs as, say, blog content. Documentation has one goal. Be helpful. So, good numbers to certain pages on your docs site tell you that users find these pages the most helpful. Then you can audit and optimize the ones with less traffic.
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Write your documentation with these things in mind. Keep them simple, keep them easy to find, and, for goodness’ sake, track your documentation and you’ll see just how much people read them, how useful they are, and how you can better them in the future.
Adopting a "Docs as Code" Workflow
One of the most effective ways to ensure your docs are findable, useful, and current is to adopt a "docs as code" workflow. This approach means you treat your documentation with the same rigor as your software development. Your content lives in a version control system, like Git, right alongside the product code. This setup simplifies management by creating a single source of truth and ensures that when the product updates, the documentation can be updated in the same process. It’s a systematic way to build, test, and release content, making the entire documentation lifecycle more efficient and reliable.
Leveraging Key Platform Features
Moving to a docs as code model is much easier when you have a platform built to support it. The right tools can automate the most tedious parts of the process, freeing up your team to focus on what they do best: creating clear and helpful content. These platforms often come with a suite of features designed to handle everything from versioning and previews to search and user analytics. They provide the infrastructure needed to not only write good documentation but also to manage and deliver it effectively at scale, ensuring a consistent and professional experience for your users.
Automatic Previews and Versioning
A core benefit of this workflow is automation. Whenever you commit an update to your documentation source files, the platform can automatically build a new version of your docs. This means your content is always current with the latest changes to the product. It also allows for automatic previews, so you can see exactly how your changes will look before they go live. This continuous integration process eliminates manual publishing steps and reduces the risk of human error, ensuring that your code and your docs are always perfectly in sync.
Integrated Search and Tool Support
Great documentation isn't helpful if no one can find the answer they need. Modern documentation platforms come with powerful, integrated search capabilities right out of the box, allowing users to find relevant information quickly. Beyond search, these systems often provide essential maintenance tools, like setting up redirects for old pages to avoid broken links. They can also offer traffic analytics, giving you insight into how users interact with your content. This data is invaluable for understanding which topics are most popular and where you can improve your documentation.
Maintenance and Business Features
For larger teams and enterprises, managing documentation involves more than just writing. It requires robust content governance. Look for platforms that offer business-focused features like team-based permissions, which let you control who can create, review, and publish content. Single sign-on (SSO) integration is another critical feature for secure access, ensuring that only authorized personnel can access sensitive or private documentation. These tools are essential for maintaining control and security as your team and content library grow.
Getting Started: Free and Paid Options
Adopting a docs as code approach is more accessible than you might think. Many platforms that support this workflow offer a range of options suitable for different needs. For instance, it's common to find free tiers available for open-source projects, which has helped drive the popularity of this method within the developer community. For businesses, there are commercial and enterprise-level solutions that provide the advanced features, security, and support necessary for professional technical documentation teams. This flexibility means you can start small and scale your efforts as your needs evolve.
Best Practices for Implementation
As you get started, one of the most important best practices to follow is to ensure your documentation builds are "reproducible." This simply means that the process for generating your final documentation should be consistent and reliable, producing the exact same output every single time, no matter who runs the build or where it's run. This eliminates the classic "it works on my machine" problem and is a cornerstone of any scalable, automated system. Defining a reproducible build process ensures stability and predictability in your documentation pipeline.
Frequently Asked Questions
My team thinks no one reads our documentation. How can I prove them wrong? The most direct way to challenge this assumption is with data. Start by getting analytics set up for your documentation site. You don't need a complex dashboard to begin. Simply tracking page views and unique visitors can provide a powerful snapshot of how many people are relying on your work. This data does more than just prove your value; it shows you exactly which topics your users find most helpful, allowing you to focus your efforts where they matter most.
Our documentation is just a massive PDF. What's the first step to making it more accessible for users? The first and most impactful step is to break that content out of the PDF format. Think about creating a dedicated, searchable portal or a simple website for your documentation. This allows search engines to index your content, making it discoverable to a wider audience. More importantly, it lets users search for and link directly to the specific answers they need, rather than forcing them to download a large file and hunt for information.
You mentioned a "docs as code" workflow. What does that actually mean for a technical writer's day-to-day work? In practice, it means you treat your documentation files with the same process and care that developers use for software code. Your content lives in a version control system, like Git, which tracks every change and makes collaboration much cleaner. Instead of emailing files around, you work in a structured system that often involves peer reviews and automated publishing. This keeps your documentation perfectly synchronized with product updates and makes the entire process more efficient and reliable.
I'm an expert on our product, so it's hard to avoid jargon. What's a good way to check if my writing is too technical? This is a common challenge for any subject matter expert. A simple and effective test is to ask someone from a different department, like sales or marketing, to read a section of your documentation. If they can't summarize the main point back to you, your language is likely too complex. Reading your work out loud is another great technique, as it helps you catch awkward phrasing and overly dense sentences that you might otherwise miss.
What are the most important metrics to track for a documentation site? It's easy to get lost in data, so start with a few key indicators. Page views will tell you which articles are the most popular, while the average time spent on a page can suggest whether people are actually reading them. One of the most valuable metrics is your site's internal search queries. This data shows you exactly what users are looking for in their own words, which is the best way to find gaps in your content and understand user needs.
Key Takeaways
- Prioritize findability by giving your docs a dedicated home: Users won't read documentation they can't find. Make your help content easy to locate and search through by using a structured, navigable platform instead of burying it in a massive PDF.
- Simplify your language to serve your audience: Write for the user, not for your internal team. Avoid technical jargon and product-specific terms to ensure your content is accessible and genuinely helpful to people with varying levels of expertise.
- Use analytics to demonstrate your documentation's impact: Stop guessing if people read the docs and start tracking usage. The data will show you which topics are most valuable to users and provide clear evidence of your team's contribution.
