Content synthesizes viewpoints
Documentation or content typically serves two purposes. Documentation provides detailed, code-based information about the software (e.g. reference topics) and it communicates various types of narratives in the form of conceptual content. The latter point is the focus of this post.
When it comes to software, content synthesizes the different ways people view similar things. For example, a customer tends to think of problems. The architects, developers, and testers on the product team tend to think of architecture with a focus on robustness, elegance, and efficiency. Marketing tends to think of features and competitive advantage.
If you are a developer, it's hard to remember sometimes that the user isn't thinking about the thing you are building but rather the problem he is having. Let's get outside of software for an example. Think of housing. A person doesn't want to stand out in the rain, so he decides he needs a dwelling. People have a problem with wet and cold weather. A builder might point out the beauty and symmetry of his building and the efficient use of space. A realtor might point out that in today's market resale is an important point to consider when you buy home. But both those points are peripheral if you are tired of standing in the rain.
This is a drastic and perhaps unrealistic example because housing is an ordinary experience. But let’s see if we can synthesize these disparate viewpoints.
The person (customer) can see the benefit of living in a beautiful, efficient building, and understand how it keeps him warm and dry. The builder (product team) sees the benefits of passive solar heating and the application of green building techniques, irrespective of who lives in the house. And when he evaluates other housing alternatives, the realtor (marketing) sees how certain facets of the building might make it easier to sell it in the future. Content is the pivot point through which communication among the groups is achieved.
Now let’s move from housing to software. Take Quicken and Microsoft Money. Before you used either product, reconciling your checkbook was a different experience. You had an irksome problem. You periodically needed to balance your checkbook so you didn’t bounce checks. Reconciling it with the bank was also a somewhat painful but necessary experience better avoided.
As an old-fashioned checking account user, you were not concerned with the downloadable import format of your on-line statements. And the competitive differences between Quicken and Money were not important to you either.
You needed to have some person or some documentation, i.e. content, synthesize those points and explain to you that on-line banking was an easier, cheaper, faster, less painful way to balance your checkbook.
