The 2022 product documentation trends you should follow
The world around us is changing rapidly. Many of the concepts that surround our professional world keep on changing. Starting from the concept of work, whether remote, hybrid or from the office, to the balance between work and leisure as work-from-home becomes increasingly popular; to expanding the digital self-service customer experience that customers expect and companies are striving to offer. The world of technical documentation is no exception.
Adapting to the changing world of work and customer expectation, we gathered the most important trends in the product documentation world that technical writers should follow in 2022.
It’s no secret that content is king. But companies across industries are starting to understand that content is also everywhere. Customers are surrounded by many different types of content, marketing and product-wise, adapted to their stage of product usage and lifecycle. Content, whether designed to catch attention or deliver product information, is in both cases the channel in which customers view and appreciate your product and brand. In this sense, both marketing and documentation are speaking to customers and prospects at the same time, at different touch points.
In 2022, companies will understand that the collaboration between the marketing and documentation teams is a necessary step to offer a perfect content experience. Such collaboration is necessary to create a unified content experience for customers, speaking both the brand and the product’s language all across the marketing, sales and customer service funnels. The faster that companies understand that investing in technical content drives customer engagement and sales, the better.
Personalized content is becoming a gold standard for customers, across many industries. Although sometimes taken for granted, your customers are surrounded by recommendations for content that is tailored for their specific product needs. When it comes to digital experiences, personalization is a win-win strategy. For customers, it creates a more relevant and engaging experience, and for companies, it provides an opportunity to strengthen their relationships with customers and boost product usage.
In 2022, the personalized content is no longer a nice to have trend. It is now ever more critical that the product documentation world will join this trend, as companies understand that an excellent customer experience must include an easy and effective process to find product answers, that is adapted to the way users actually search for and use that information. Bringing personalization and recommendations into your product content will increase the impact of your documentation portal and product loyalty. It will, most of all, make sure your customer will get the most out of your product documentation!
In 2022, as in any other year, accessibility for all should always be a major priority. That’s because content is king only when it’s accessible and available, and everyone can engage with it. This is why we see that in 2022 more and more companies will put efforts into designing their product content to become more accessible and fit for various audiences’ demands.
2022 brings a holistic approach to customer experience, that advocates for meeting customers’ different needs. Companies should make sure product content is available for everyone, and consider their various audiences’ needs when designing and authoring content, so they can use it too.
In 2022, your customers speak to you constantly through their engagement with your product content. They show you how and how much they use your content, and the level of trust they show in your content. Delivering market-leading, continuously-optimized content experiences requires measuring the data your customers offer to feeding insight into their content usage back into your content strategy.
As technical writing gains momentum and importance across every enterprise and every industry, so too will the need to standardize the profession. In 2022, companies will realize the need to standardize the technical documentation profession, whether through a governing body to make rules for technical communication, or a method of certifying technical writers.
