All this assumes one important thing: That people will read what you put in front of them.
I've been working in startups for several years now at companies of a variety of sizes, all of which were remote-first, and which (ostensibly) relied on writing to communicate.
People do not read what you write. I don't know if they can't actually read fluently or if they won't, but it does not matter if I submit a bug ticket that says exactly what is happening and lists the ten things I've already tried to resolve it. 100% of the time, the first reply is to ask if I've tried doing any of the first three things I said I already tried.
It's that kind of thing that makes me think documentation is hopeless. Nobody's going to read it anyway.
I hate how true this is at most companies I have worked at. Invest a good amount of time writing up the docs and then a few hours later some asshole from another department has the nerve to ask me to “walk me through the process”.
Fuck you. I’ll leave you unread until end of day then send you the docs you clearly didn’t read.
whenever i run across this issue i literally just cut and paste (or screenshot selection) what i wrote before. you have to deal with the reality you are presented with, and unfortunately in this reality nobody reads a damn thing, or they skip every other line, or skip the middle n lines of a big chunk, or whatever.
I've been working in startups for several years now at companies of a variety of sizes, all of which were remote-first, and which (ostensibly) relied on writing to communicate.
People do not read what you write. I don't know if they can't actually read fluently or if they won't, but it does not matter if I submit a bug ticket that says exactly what is happening and lists the ten things I've already tried to resolve it. 100% of the time, the first reply is to ask if I've tried doing any of the first three things I said I already tried.
It's that kind of thing that makes me think documentation is hopeless. Nobody's going to read it anyway.