Writing Great Documentation for On-Prem Software Distributed with Replicated
Blog post from Replicated
At Replicated, effective documentation is considered an integral part of the product, ensuring user success with on-premises software by providing comprehensive guides for installation, management, and troubleshooting. The blog emphasizes the importance of collaborative efforts among technical writers, product managers, and developers to produce accurate and clear documentation, highlighting its impact on the user experience. It advises using static site generators like Docusaurus to create lightweight and maintainable documentation websites and suggests making repositories public to facilitate user contributions. The blog also recommends adopting established style guides to maintain consistency and clarity, and provides detailed guidance on organizing documentation, with sections dedicated to getting started, installing, managing, updating, and troubleshooting software. It stresses the importance of writing clear installation documentation and using a standardized format for troubleshooting content to help users resolve issues independently, thereby reducing support requests.