Help Documentation

The reader of a help article arrives stuck, impatient, and looking for one specific answer; the job is to get them unstuck fast. The costly failure this skill prevents is the feature tour - an article organized around what the product has instead of what the user is trying to do, which the stuck user scrolls, fails to match to their problem, and abandons for a support ticket.

Operating procedure

Step 1: Gather inputs

1. The task or problem the article addresses, in the user's words (required). One article = one task; if the request covers several tasks, split into linked articles now.
2. The exact UI labels, menu paths, and screens involved (required - ask for screenshots or the live product; guessing labels produces instructions that fail on contact).
3. Audience and prerequisites: what plan/role/permissions the reader needs.
4. Platform or version differences that change the steps (default: none noted).
5. The most common failure points, from support tickets if available.

Step 2: Choose the article type

This maps to the Diátaxis quadrants - pick one per article, never blend: