Better Documentation

One of the interesting things in IT I have seen so far is how people tend to learn less of what they use more. I call this Inverse law of IT learning. For example, we take training courses, read books, and participate in discussions about say, Weblogic or WebSphere or SAP or any other technology we tend to use sporadically in different projects. However, we barely tend to read a book or take a course about Microsoft Word or PowerPoint. We have come to see them equivalent to a DVD Player or a TV where we're just supposed to 'get' it without RTFM.

I don't think the analogy we developed applies much. Desktop publishing software such as the Microsoft Office Suite are much more complicated than Notepad for example. They are excellent tools to deliver quality documentation, if only we spend a little bit of time understanding them a bit more. I have seen experienced professionals spend minutes (which adds up significantly over time as we use Word almost every day) in cutting/pasting/selecting by fumbling with the mouse without knowing some basic keyboard shortcuts that can let them do the same in seconds.

We are more happy to crib about the 'user unfriendliness' of Microsoft Office than trying to spend a few minutes to understand the design and concepts involved, such as the Style library and Paragraphs.

I made a presentation (in the traditional death-by-bullets style) a while ago for my colleagues on how small tricks in Microsoft Office suite can significantly improve documentation that is produced daily by teams - be they defect reports, project status, or design documents.

While writing the presentation, I ended up reading Presentation Zen and Non-designers design book, which completely changed my perception on how to create presentations. You can see the final version in SlideShare. Please comment!

Better Documentation

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