The article emphasizes that product documentation is often ignored not due to laziness but because it's not crafted with the reader's needs in focus. Rather than enhancing team alignment, it becomes outdated and ineffective. The author identifies documentation failures such as overgeneralization, overengineering, and oversharing, preventing users from finding the relevant information easily. By treating documentation as an internal product tailored to user needs, teams can foster better engagement and understanding, positioning their documentation as a critical component in product development and usability.
People don't avoid reading your product documentation because they're lazy. They avoid it because it wasn't written for them. It was written to be written.
Docs can align, inspire, and streamline but only when they're treated like what they are: internal products. You just need to think of them as products with users, use cases, and measurable outcomes.
There's an unspoken assumption: 'If I wrote it, they'll read it.' But like a poorly designed UI, unclear docs trigger friction, not engagement.
Most teams face three core documentation failures: Overgeneralization, Overengineering, and Oversharing, which lead to content that fails to meet the needs of its audience.
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