{"id":5196,"date":"2016-09-08T09:04:13","date_gmt":"2016-09-08T14:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.encoretechresources.com\/insights\/?p=5196"},"modified":"2016-09-08T09:07:45","modified_gmt":"2016-09-08T14:07:45","slug":"cruising-clearly-through-a-product-or-process","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.encoretechresources.com\/insights\/2016\/09\/08\/cruising-clearly-through-a-product-or-process\/","title":{"rendered":"Cruising Clearly Through a Product or Process"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.encoretechresources.com\/insights\/wp-content\/uploads\/images-1-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.encoretechresources.com\/insights\/wp-content\/uploads\/images-1-1.jpg\" alt=\"images-1\" width=\"245\" height=\"206\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-5198\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nWeb users are becoming increasingly savvy about getting the most insight possible into products they&#8217;re considering buying and using. So clearly presented documentation, notes the <a href=\"http:\/\/easydita.com\/how-documentation-has-become-a-marketing-and-sales-tool-seriously\/\">easyDITA blog<\/a>, is doubling in importance: As a guide to value as well as use.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So, start thinking about documentation as a marketing and sales resource,&#8221; easyDITA urges, &#8220;Don&#8217;t hide it behind logins or limit access to actual customers. Feature links to it on your product pages and reference it in your marketing materials.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Brilliant, providing the documentation is clearly and usefully prepared. Not that instructions for putting equipment to work need to read like a novel. But they should read like a purposely prepared, easy-to-use guide that you&#8217;re proud of.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Work with your tech writers to develop a clear tone and voice, and conversational language style guides that won&#8217;t scare away a first time visitor doing their homework. Generally speaking, this change in tone from very technical to more plain language style has become the standard for technical writing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Gee! Technical writing that breezes right along providing obvious value! How about that! <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In the world of content management, easyDITA notes, &#8220;documentation teams have often been relegated to a poor relations role in many companies, resulting in understaffing, limited budgets, and backlogs of inaccurate or out-dated documentation.&#8221; How dumb, once it&#8217;s pointed out, often too late.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Finally, give the docs team credit where credit is due \u2013 they should be direct contributors to the bottom line, not a cost center.&#8221; It&#8217;s amazing how useful work springs into prominence once actual value is pointed out! \u2013 <em>Doug Bedell <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Web users are becoming increasingly savvy about getting the most insight possible into products they&#8217;re considering buying and using. So clearly presented documentation, notes the easyDITA blog, is doubling in importance: As a guide to value as well as use. &#8220;So, start thinking about documentation as a marketing and sales resource,&#8221; easyDITA urges, &#8220;Don&#8217;t hide [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,3,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-communication","category-technology","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.encoretechresources.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5196"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.encoretechresources.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.encoretechresources.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.encoretechresources.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.encoretechresources.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5196"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.encoretechresources.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5200,"href":"http:\/\/www.encoretechresources.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5196\/revisions\/5200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.encoretechresources.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.encoretechresources.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.encoretechresources.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}