Verbs Not Nouns: Writing Effective Documentation with Brian MacDonald

Brian MacDonald, Manager of Technical Editing at DigitalOcean joins me to discuss the importance of writing efficient documentation for any product.

In this episode, Brian and I chat about his talk at All Things Open entitled Verbs Not Nouns and covering the importance of writing documentation that instructs your users on how to use your product to solve the problem it intends to solve for them. We also cover common mistakes in writing documentation and tips for ensuring yours is effective. Listen to hear Brian's advice and resources to improve your documentation.

Highlights:

• Brian introduces himself and his role at DigitalOcean (0:47)
• Why does documentation matter? (3:29)
• The most common mistake people make with documentation (7:07)
• Why are docs frequently neglected? (11:37)
• Who should write the docs? (15:47)
• How to ensure your docs are efficient (20:21)
• When should you start writing your documentation? (24:32)

Links:

Brian

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/macdonaldeditorial/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/bmac_editor
• Company: https://www.digitalocean.com/
• Resources:
  • Verbs Not Nouns Slides: https://archive.org/details/verbs-not-nouns-ato-2022
  • Write The Docs Community: https://www.writethedocs.org/