Software Documentation Tools – Focusing on What Matters Most

Yesterday I talked a little bit about creating applications that change behavior. I wanted to talk a little more about how we have tried to do this with ScreenSteps in regards to software documentation.

When the idea for ScreenSteps first came about there were already a wide a variety of media creation and software documentation tools. And many of them were very good at what they did. They had flash integration, video call outs, xml output, version tracking, translation controls, audit trails, all sorts of great things. But we had noticed something.

All software documentation that we saw was horrible. It was useless. It was always frustrating to use.

Software documentation tools had evolved by finding out what their users wanted. These users were usually technical writers who were charged with writing a manual. Most organizations didn’t rely on manuals for much. They were just something that had to get done and nobody really cared if they were effective or not.

In addition, it was the full-time job of these technical writers to work on documentation. They had time to learn complex tools and spend time fiddling with hundreds of options.

But we weren’t technical writers. We were business owners. To us documentation was useless unless it helped us run our business. And we weren’t full-time technical writers. We had to wear 20 different hats in our business each day so our needs were very different. We decided that, for us, three things were most important:

1. We had to be able to create the documentation quickly.
2. It had to be easy to add lots of pictures since that seemed to help our customers the most.
3. It had to be easy to update the documentation and pictures when things changed.

Those were the primary goals. Every feature we added had to help us meet those goals or at the very least, not take away from them.

Initially we thought our primary candidates for ScreenSteps would be technical writers. We were wrong. The three key items I have listed above were not the three most important items for technical writers. We quickly found that the things we cared about were not the same things they cared about.

We had two choices – change the product or change the target customers. We decided to change the customers. We tried to find people who cared about the same things that we cared about. This was largely influenced by Clayton Christensen’s The Innovator’s Solution and Kim and Mauborgne’s Blue Ocean Strategy (both must-reads in my opinion). We were going to target non-consumption (people who should create documentation but didn’t) and carve out our own product niche.

Who were these people who should be creating documentation but weren’t? They were small business owners and IT support desks. The only thing these people cared about were actual business results. They needed documentation that was effective and that didn’t take a lot of time to create or maintain. They cared about the same things that we did and so it was a really good fit.

Things worked out pretty much as you might expect. Small businesses, IT support desks, consultants, school districts and universities have adopted ScreenSteps for their software documentation. They love the product and many have achieved phenomenal results. Technical writers still usually take a quick glance at it and move on since it doesn’t have the features they “need”.

Did we make the right decision? From a financial standpoint I don’t know. We could have created something with a much higher price point that met the needs of technical writers. But I don’t believe that creating tools for writing content that no one ever looks at is a great business to be in. I do know that watching our customers improve their organizations and businesses with ScreenSteps is really, really fun. So, from a life-fulfillment standpoint we definitely made the right decision.

So, what matters most to you? It is an important thing to figure out if you are creating a product or service.

Two bits of advice:

1. Make sure you know what matters most about the product/service you offer. Make sure everything you do contributes to what matters most.
2. Make sure you know what matters most to your customers. If it isn’t the same as what matters most to you then you need to either change what matters to you or change your customers. That will probably be the most important and most difficult decision you will make as a business owner.