I've been writing professionally for 3+ years, and on this personal blog for 5+ years.
Throughout this time, I've built a large network made of developers, other technical writers, solutions engineers, customer and support teams.
I've been analyzing data on Amplitude, Google Analytics and Google Data Studio, and I've identified three common user problems when reading the documentation:
The content doesn't explain "the why": Users don't understand why a feature should matter to them.
Customers struggle with feature mechanics: Users don't understand how a feature connects with the broader product line.
Content doesn't have enough visual diagrams: Documentation lacks visual aids, leading to cognitive overload.
How do you create content customers truly need?
The answer to this question is to build a strategy to learn how to identify content gaps.
Leverage AI
Use Gemini (or other LLM) to identify strengths and weaknesses and identify missing information.
Enter the URL link of the page you want to analyze, or copy and paste the content into Gemini, and ask Gemini to identify strengths and weaknesses of the content you entered.
Gemini will:
Beware that Gemini will also make suggestions that you cannot implement due to company policy, so use your judgment to filter out content that may breach company internal policy.
Create visual diagrams
Visual diagrams reduce reader fatigue and make your content more digestible.
Visual diagrams help your users understand your product better, increase retention and user engagement.
If you don't where to start with creating a diagram, Gemini (or other LLMs) can help you get started.
Give your preferred LLM the content you want to use to create a diagram, and it should give you a rough diagram (in case of Gemini), or steps on how to create one.
Leverage docs feedback
Most documentation sites have a feedback mechanism which involves selecting thumbs to provide feedback.
This feedback mechanism can signal where users struggle to connect with your content.
Analyze the type of feedback the users are sharing.
What are the pages that receiving the most positive feedback? And, what do these pages have in common?
What are the pages that received the most negative feedback? And, what do these pages have in common? Can you reach out to the support team and evaluate whether they've encountered a spike in support tickets on a specific page?
Analytics tool help provide an understanding of your users, how they engage with the documentation, and potential pain points.
You can use Amplitude, Google Analytics, or Google Data Studio to analyze the success of your content and track trends.
Amplitude
Amplitude is an AI analytics platform that helps you build better documentation (and products).
Amplitude receives event information whenever a user selects a link on a page.
Every time a user lands on a new documentation, a pageview event is triggered.
Pageviews are helpful to understand unique visits, visit frequency and user journeys.
Documentation clicks can help you understand where the user may need additional information or support.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a platform that tracks pageviews and traffic of a website.
With Google Analytics, you can:
Determine the number of pageviews each page receives in a certain amount of time.
Determine how users find your page.
Determine how much time your users spend on each page.
Determine what users type when searching for a problem.
Google Data Studio
Google Data Studio (formerly known as Looker Studio) is a data visualization tool that turns raw data into interactive dashboards and reports.
You can create your own dashboard to understand where your users go for information on your products, and whether the documentation is driving value to other pages.
If you follow the steps above, you should experience:
An increase in positive sentiment: Your users will experience more satisfaction because the content you create meets their needs.
A reduction in support case volume: Content that solves customer problems is directly linked to a reduction in support cases.
Increase in user adoption: Content that's easy to find and digest leads to users wanting to adopt your product.
