Quick Tips: New User Introduction to Documentation

Goals of introducing new users to your documentation should generally include generating excitement around the product and instruct users how to use the product. An optional step my include taking care of a one-time user account setup but let's not get carried away for our users first introduction to your documentation.

Overviews

While technical documentation may be rather bland at times, the introduction and/or overview pages are your chance to generate some excitement around the product and entice the new user to explore other facets of the documentation. Use of graphics should highlight the product's features and illustrate ease of use. Cross linking should be used but not abused.

Tutorials

Short tutorials and quick start guides are a great way to introduce new users to the product by showing them by how to use the product. Two good examples are Bootstrap's Getting Started and YoYo's introduction to Gamemaker Studio Basics. Each take a different approach to product introduction and both examples leave the user wanting more. Code samples should be well labelled and, if possible, executable. If videos are used, keep the short (under 5 minutes) and concise.

Registration

If your documentation site requires users to register, make sure it's quick and simple. A good percentage of users will be turned off by the notion that they must register before seeing the content they are seeking. One approach is to have a few pages that are open to everyone (like the introduction, overview, quick start, and maybe a handful of tutorials). If the user is still interested in your product after viewing the open pages, then they don't mind as much to register an account.

The three A's

Introducing new users to your documentation is a lot like an on-boarding process in a HR department. When a new employee starts, they are accommodated, assimilated, and accelerated into the company tools, culture, and value of those first two items. With product documentation, its very similar too:

• Accommodate: give the new user the tools they need to use your documentation to their benefit (excellent navigation, search, current guides and tutorials, and well tagged documents)
• Assimilate: help the new user to absorb the culture of the documentation site (e.g. use consistent terminology and navigation)
• Accelerate: encourage the user by delivering the value of the product through easy to learn tutorials and apply documentation of the product (cross-linking tutorials with content found in guides)