At the end of last week we launched some new “Tours” of what you can do with ScreenSteps Live.

The first two tours show you:

• How to create a product documentation site in a single afternoon
• How to document all of the internal processes at your company using ScreenSteps and ScreenSteps Live.

These are both broad overviews that should give you a good idea of how you can implement ScreenSteps and ScreenSteps Live in your organization.

We have also added a new chat option to the site, so if you have any questions while browsing the information, click the chat button in the upper right and we will do our best to answer them.

Let us know if you find the new information helpful.

The other day I was watching my 5-year old complete a connect-the-dots page. I was amazed at how such a simple concept could turn just about anyone into a semi-functional artist. All he had to do was draw one line at a time between two numbers. At the end he had completed a drawing that would have been far beyond his ability had the dots not been there.

This is exactly how your documentation should be. Software is not art. It isn’t golf. It isn’t the violin. You shouldn’t need to work years and years to master it. There is a task. It needs to be done. People are going to use your software to do it. Does your documentation allow them to connect the dots?

Now imagine if my 5-year old sat down and saw “1,2,3,4,29″. Imagine that between 4 and 29 there are bunch of dots with no numbers on them. What would he do? He would be extremely frustrated. Which dot does he go to next?

You can find these “missing numbers” in documentation all of the time and it creates feelings of extreme angst and frustration – not exactly the experience you are trying to create for your users.

This happens most often when documentation focuses on features and not tasks. Are you telling your user what your program does or are you telling them how to do it?

Next time you are documenting something, ask yourself, am I numbering all of the dots? Are my users going to be able to connect those dots? If not then go back and tidy things up. Your users with thank you for it.

I don’t ever plan my documentation. I used to. But not anymore. It’s a waste of time. Maybe if I were on a documentation team and had 6 months to get the documentation ready then maybe I would plan. I could plan and then revise and then plan some more.

But I am not on a documentation team. I run a business. I am the web programmer, accountant, custodian, sales person, system admin and business development director. I don’t have time to plan my documentation.

So what have I done? I have planned not to plan. I have created a system for documentation that requires no planning at all AND creates documentation that is much more useful to our customers. It really is quite simple. Just follow these simple steps:

1. I write down the questions my customers have actually asked me.
2. I create lessons in ScreenSteps that answer those questions.
3. I post the answers as a manual to ScreenSteps Live. You can see an example here.
4. When a customer asks a question I do one of two things:

- If I have a lesson that answers their question I send it to them. - If I don’t, I create one, add it to the manual and send it to them. See here and here for two lessons I added to our manual this last week in response to customer questions.

This system has worked really well for me. I don’t end up writing content that won’t ever get used again, the lessons are very easy to update because they focus around a specifc task and I can quickly respond to customer questions.

Try it out. On your next documentation project, plan not to plan. Just answer the questions people are asking. You will find that your documentation will be easier to create and easier to use.