Product documentation is essential to help users navigate through your product. Many teams consider documentation a necessary evil, something that needs to be written if you have to.
However, good documentation provides a lot of value for your users and your business. As you read this blog, you will learn about the product documentation tree framework and how to use it to structure product documentation.
Product documentation is often an afterthought. Everyone primarily focuses on creating a cool product. They can’t wait for users to get started with it, often with bare minimum documentation, completely ignoring the user’s point of view.
Today, consumers can choose from a wide range of high-quality products, resulting in higher customer expectations. These competitive products feature easy-to-use interfaces and attractive designs, as well as comprehensive documentation and self-help guides.
Here are four steps to understanding the product documentation tree framework
- What is a product documentation tree?
- Why do you need a product documentation tree?
- What is the product tree framework that is easy to construct?
- How to create a product tree?
What is a product documentation tree?
A product documentation tree is a visual representation of all the content which needs to be written for your product. It will help you divide the content correctly and create a hierarchy, making the writing job more manageable. It will help you decide what goes on the landing page, what goes in the product description, and what goes in the FAQs, thereby saving you a lot of time.
Why do you need a product documentation tree?
Categories make it easier to segment information. Structure comes first, but you need to know what type of information your documentation represents. Is it technical, or is it product documentation? Documentation for a product is intended primarily for developers who collaborate on the product’s development.
A product may contain this information internally, or it may be shared with external collaborators, especially in open source. It could also serve as training material for sales partners and marketing departments. It is crucial to structure product documents from the end users’ point of view, not from the developers’.
Content types and categories can also affect how documents are structured. It is vital to differently structure theoretical documents like product concepts or API references from useful content like tutorials and how-to guides.
How can a product tree framework be constructed easily?
You can find the supplies you need to play the game in your workspace. Begin by sketching a tree with branches and roots on the whiteboard or printing the image below.
How to create a product tree for your product?
Product trees typically have four main features:
Trunk: Current product features you are building
Branches: Consider branch as representing the primary function of a product or system (you can allow for new branches to emerge as required)
Roots: The technology or infrastructure that supports your list of features and your intellectual property
Leaves: Different product ideas within each leaf
A variety of benefits are derived from the Product Tree exercise, including:
- Prioritizing feature requests
- Identifying previously unknown requirements
- Gathering input from stakeholders
- Gaining insight from many sources
- Enabling customers to play a role in shaping the future of a product or service
- Helping company to reach product success
That’s why we put documentation high value in Producter since day one, both within the team and for our users. If you want to be with your users and help them in the global competition, this is the first step of your strategy.
We recently started creating video tutorials to help how the product is used. Also, we are cooking a brand new feature in our product to enhance the documentation experience further.
Thanks for reading this article on the product documentation tree framework. We hope you found it interesting and valuable and that it will help you create excellent documentation for your products. If you would like to see more of the great work that we do, you can visit our Twitter.
Thank you for reading, and have a great one.
Producter is a product management tool designed to become customer-driven.
It helps you collect feedback, manage tasks, sharing product updates, creating product docs, and tracking roadmap.
