Free documentation: Problems and Potential

Why pay if you can get it free?

One of the main challenges our profession faces is the proliferation of good documentation that’s free. Management increasingly will ask why they should pay us if the same product is available at no cost.

And let’s admit it – sometimes (dare I say “often”?) the free documentation is better than what we charge to produce.

A cautionary tale

There are many examples of free documentation. Let me tell you just one recent story.

I wanted to quickly learn the basics of a particular DTP tool.

I downloaded a free 30-day trial version along with the documentation, launched the application, and dutifully clicked the Tutorial link.

The link blinked. I had the uncomfortable sensation that it was winking, taunting me. Nothing else happened.

A computer re-boot later, it was the same story.

Okay, I thought, I’ll fall back on our profession’s favorite nasty motto: RTFM.

Well, presumably the manual covered the basics, but I’ll never really know. Because it covered so much, in such excruciating detail, with endless cross-reference links, and with poor search capabilities.

There were other “out-of-the-box” types of documentation, some of which required downloading specific applications. None was of any use.

The obvious solution

Increasingly frustrated and with a looming deadline, I called my favorite computer troubleshooter – Leora Livneh. She suggested today’s obvious solution: “Google” the product name along with the word tutorial.

She specified one caveat: Don’t look at anything that’s provided by the company that produces the product, since it typically isn’t worth much. “Don’t take this as an insult to your profession,” she said. Naturally, I immediately took offense.

As if she had waved a red flag, the very first thing I did after receiving a wealth of promising tutorial links was to click on the one with the company’s URL.

There were tons of tutorials. None explained the product version that I needed. Red-faced, I resolved never to tell Leora about not having heeded her one warning.

Getting back to the search results, my preference was for a video tutorial. After tweaking the criteria, the search engine displayed a digestible list of hits.

While checking out the most promising links, two annoying obstacles took turns flashing on the screen: Download a specific player (again!), or everyone’s favorite error message – file not found.

Eureka!

So I went back to the search and selected a text-based tutorial series – one not provided by the tool’s producer.

Over the next couple of days, I did the introductory tutorial procedures, read the concise overviews provided at the beginning of each section, and dipped in and out of areas that were of particular interest.

After investing several hours, I got a handle on the basic concepts, tried out the most important features, and glimpsed the more advanced capabilities.

I would have gladly paid the company to get the effective introduction that I found for free.

Morals of the story

What lessons can we learn?

First, in trying to provide documentation for everyone, we sometimes serve no one.

We need to build into documentation systems the capability to tailor the content for the user. A few simple questions about the user’s level (beginner, intermediate, advanced, upgrader) should result in focused information.

The technology is available now. We should use it widely.

However, just using fancy new delivery systems does not guarantee any better results. The tutorial I used consisted of simple HTML text files with a few links and a couple of illustrations. But it was what a beginner needed, and the language and content consistently reflected that.

On the other hand, the newfangled systems provided with the product, which required downloading new applications, had neither intuitive user interfaces nor sufficient search capabilities.

A standard browser search engine yielded reasonable results in a few clicks. The documentation we provide, which is much smaller and more focused, should be easier – not more difficult – to search.

Video: Promise and pitfalls

While video is an attractive and in-demand training method, it can be tricky.

The costs and time involved are usually significantly higher than for other solutions.

The costs increase even further when we produce sufficient variations to satisfy the needs of the different levels of our audience – as we should.

It is also challenging to ensure that the video is compatible with a variety of players. Few things annoy users more than clicking on a video link and getting an eternally rotating circle or an overly enthusiastic message to “Just take 30 seconds to download SuperDuperPlayer and your video will start automatically! We Promise!! REALLY!!!”

Raising the bar to provide video content is not a free pass to let other stuff slide, like maintenance, usability, and accessibility. It just may make those things more costly and challenging to provide. A careful selection of video and graphic tools should take these crucial issues into consideration.  

Making the business case: Free and easy

There’s no turning the clock back to when our users were a captive audience. I doubt that they were happier then, either. They were just more frustrated since if they couldn’t find the answers quickly in our documentation, they felt totally stuck.

On the contrary, we need to argue that happier customers are more likely to stick with our product, use the upgrades, and purchase other products that our company produces. Informed users are a business asset.

So we should convince management that it makes sense to pay us and then make our documentation products free and as easy to access as the other information that our customers find useful.

Our challenge is to provide information that is even better than the material that’s currently generated for free. When we demonstrate that this helps keep our customers loyal, management will be more than happy to pay us.

Note

There are many types of free information, such as user groups. Please share your thoughts on their specific problems and potential.