We polled over 300 Technical Communicators to determine the best documentation sites on the web. If you’re looking for the best product or service documentation sites, look no further than the sites below.
The winner, Microsoft was chosen by Technical Communicators due it’s great search capabilities, product coverage is excellent and it’s easy to use. Microsoft Answers and their MVP program was also cited as best in class.
Interestingly, all of the top 10 are from well recognized brands. There are no small companies or surprises that we can see. And with the exception of Intel and Cisco, all of the top 10 are consumer facing. Moreover, all except Wikipedia are from software or technical companies.
This list of the top documentation sites of 2010 as ranked by Technical Communicators is a good place to start if you want to know how the best are using documentation. Yet, most of what we see is just the beginning. There’s more just around the corner. Just subscribe to this blog to learn why.
| Rank | Tech Doc Site | Cited Attributes | Powered By |
|
1 |
Microsoft | · Great search ability
· Excellent standards · Easy to access and provide feedback · Well organized – meets delivery demands (articles, video how-to’s, development area, and so on) · MVP Program |
Custom built |
| 2 | IBM Redbooks |
• Effective use of Eclipse Info Center technology |
IBM – Redbooks |
|
3 |
Apple |
• Interactive assistance and guidance |
Custom |
| 4 | Hewlett Packard |
• Accurate |
Custom |
| 5 | Adobe |
• Robust Community Help |
Custom |
| 6 | Intuit |
• Easy to access and provide feedback |
MindTouch |
| 7 | Dell |
• Great decision trees |
Custom |
| 8 | Cisco |
• Modern |
Custom |
| 9 | Intel |
• Comprehensive and well written |
Custom |
| 10 | Wikipedia |
• Lots of info and links, easy to navigate |
MediaWiki |
Notice most of the sites are built from scratch. This becomes extremely expensive for most companies and simply unattainable for Small & Medium Businesses (SMB). Moreover, the sites operate as mini-silos, meaning customer support is not connected to documentation which is not tied to community help. Forums, blogs and Wiki’s are separated but used for similar purposes. Even Microsoft has disconnected support and documentation portals.
The problem with this situation is that most of the sites above don’t allow you to globally search across each of the different documentation silos. That’s a problem. How do their customers know if the solution is located in the Wiki, the community, or the knowledge base?
(Cross-posted @ the MindTouch blog )
