Tech documentation best practices: Making devs love your docs

Thanks for sharing the full blog post! Here’s a summary and analysis of the key ideas, along with recommendations if you’re looking to refine it further or use it as a guide for your own technical documentation practices.

🔍 Summary of the Blog Post

🎯 Purpose:

To outline best practices for creating clear, effective software documentation and developer tutorials, emphasizing that great documentation is as important as the software itself.

📘 What Makes Good Technical Documentation?

1. Overview or Landing Page:
   • Acts as a trailhead.
   • Offers distinct learning paths to avoid forcing a linear experience.
2. Quickstart:
   • Should lead to meaningful value, not just “Hello World”.
   • Must cover setup, installation, and basic usage.
3. Key Concepts:
   • Clarifies product-specific terms.
   • Visual aids like UI screenshots enhance comprehension.
4. What’s New:
   • Keeps developers updated with practical code examples.
   • Shows that the product is actively maintained.
5. Example Apps:
   • Offers immediate feedback and hands-on understanding.
   • Interactive challenges deepen learning.

🧑‍💻 What Makes a Good Tutorial?

1. Overview – Establish context and learning goals.
2. Prerequisites – Prevent frustration by clearly listing required tools/dependencies.
3. Summary – Reinforce key takeaways.
4. What’s Next – Guide users to continue their learning journey.

🧭 Information Architecture

• Organize documentation like a trail map.
• Examples:
  • Cello: Linear progression from intro → SDK → deep dive.
  • mintBlue: Feature-centric structure (quickstart, concepts, tutorials, guides).
  • mintBlue’s onboarding-first approach (hands-on → conceptual) builds intuition before explanation.

📌 Examples of Great Docs

• Vault – Strong landing page navigation.
• Cello.so – Clear documentation path and informative “what’s new”.
• Stripe – Best-in-class interactivity.
• mintBlue – (Author’s own work) Implements all suggested best practices.

📂 Where to Host Documentation

• GitHub: Great for lightweight projects, not ideal for complex ones.
• Recommendation: Host on a dedicated documentation website, use README.md to route usersthere.

👨‍💻 Why Developers Should Care About Documentation

• Good documentation = clearer communication of a product’s value.
• It’s not about dumping info, but guiding and educating.
• Enhances adoption and reduces onboarding friction.

✅ Strengths of the Blog Post

• Rich with real-world examples (mintBlue, Stripe, Cello).
• Uses relatable analogies (trailheads, hiking, maps).
• Offers actionable advice and not just theory.
• Promotes developer empathy—putting user experience first.
  

✍️ Suggestions for Improvement

If you’re planning to publish or repurpose this post:

1. Add missing image alt text:
   • Two instances in the “Information Architecture” section prompt: “Please set an alt value for this image…”
2. Consider a visual diagram of ideal documentation architecture:
   • Could be a simple visual showing the flow from Overview → Quickstart → Tutorials → Reference → “What’s new”.
3. Include a checklist summary at the end:
   • Helps readers retain the best practices quickly.
   • Example: markdownCopyEdit✅ Documentation Essentials: - [ ] Clear Overview Page - [ ] Quickstart with Real Value - [ ] Defined Key Concepts - [ ] “What’s New” Section - [ ] Downloadable Example Apps - [ ] Well-structured Tutorials (Overview, Prereqs, Summary, Next Steps)
4. Consider linking to external examples (e.g., Stripe, Cello) so readers can explore them.
5. Add a short conclusion or CTA:
   • Encourage readers to audit their own docs.
   • Maybe a line like: “Start by reviewing your Quickstart—does it deliver real value in 5 minutes or less?”

Would you like this rewritten as a more formal article, a checklist PDF, a slide deck, or anything else?

4o

You said:

ech documentation best practices: Making devs love your docs rewrite this title

ChatGPT said:

Sure! Here are some rewritten title options to consider, depending on your tone and audience:

✅ Professional & Clear

• Best Practices for Technical Documentation: How to Win Developer Loyalty
• Creating Developer-Friendly Docs: Best Practices for Technical Documentation
• Technical Documentation That Developers Love: Proven Best Practices

💡 Engaging & Creative

• From Frustration to Flow: Making Developers Love Your Documentation
• Write Docs Developers Actually Want to Read
• Making Documentation a Developer’s Best Friend

🔧 Straightforward & Action-Oriented

• How to Create Technical Docs Developers Love
• Documentation That Works: Best Practices for Dev-Friendly Docs
• The Developer-First Guide to Technical Documentation

Would you like options tailored for a blog post, conference talk, or internal documentation guide?

While GitHub is a good place to store documentation about your project, it doesn’t offer a great developer experience. For simple projects, this might satisfy, but as your project grows bigger and hosts more features, it’s recommended to spin up a dedicated software documentation website.

Don’t be afraid to continue using the README.md file in your GitHub repository to guide developers to your hosted documentation and provide some quickstart information to get them up and running.

4o