←back to thread

396 points Bogdanp | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0.451s | source
1. btbuildem ◴[] No.45538752[source]
This holds true for product documentation as well. Too often docs are just a litany of detailed feature descriptions, which field and button does what, etc.

Feature-list type documentation is orders of magnitude less useful than workflow-type documentation. Majority of the time users are concerned with accomplishing tasks, which if the software is well designed, can be grouped, composed, and illustrated with examples. Key examples can be chosen to both showcase features and illustrate the main paths from "raw materials" to "finished workpiece", at various scopes.

This gap is too often filled by random youtube tutorials of varying quality. It's really telling of the massive blind spot afflicting the makers; they're too close to the details of what they build to see the whole, especially from the perspective of a user.

replies(1): >>45540031 #
2. pixl97 ◴[] No.45540031[source]
> than workflow-type documentation.

Yes, for api/token interactions I love examples that show how to generate a token with only permissions for what you are doing. Then pulling said data from API and interacting with it. At least that's how the users that use the product I work on. Security, workflow, and cleanup are great examples.