Web Application
Most of the application developed and used today, are web-based. A web application can run everywhere, is often hosted in the cloud and can be connected with other applications easily.
Especially in the case of Business Application, web applications are in big favor compared to other application types as apps or installed desktop application. For web application, all the user needs, is a browser – so “bring your own device” is possible and easy. Installation- and update problems for various software is no longer necessary.
Web application are often sold as SaaS (software as a service). The user just pays for the usage of the product. There is no installation necessary. The data is automatically stored and managed. So the end user and customer of the application can use it nearly instantly.
Productized Software is expected by the SaaS user. Besides a working, well-created software application, additional non-functional features must be provided:
- a clear onboarding process and support
- clean user interfaces and usability
- an easy to use product, a well-written online documentation to provide additional information when stuck or in case of trouble
- hassle-free payment
Perfect Documentation
Users of todays software products expect a great documentation and support.
The documentation for software products can be challenging and requires specific knowledge and experience.
During the life cycle of a software product, different documentation processes and steps are necessary to create and maintain an outstanding software documentation.
Many different types of documentation can be used to lead and support new and existing users and customers – from onboarding manuals, tutorials, to knowledge base and troubleshooting guides.
Various documentation software, tools and products can be used to create and manage the different documentation documents and keep them updated during the software product lifecycle.
Multilingual and Internationalization
Successful web applications are international. Customers from different countries, backgrounds and languages are using the product every day.
Creating and maintaining a multilingual software product is challenging and requires additional processes, tools and people.
Besides the product, all the other parts of the company need to be international and multi-language: website, marketing, sales and product support. Managing a multilingual documentation is also necessary.
Agile Product Development
The development of todays software products follows an agile philosophy. Customer demands, sales input, product management input and technical changes require short release cycles.
Keeping the documentation up to date with weekly or daily product updates is challenging – agile product documentation can be helpful.
Documentation for Agile Multilingual Web Application
The documentation of a multilingual web application, that is developed in an agile process, can be quite challenging:
- Updating 100s of documentation pages in the supported languages with daily or weekly software releases requires specific tools and processes.
- Besides technical writer that create and update the documentation, translators and reviews needs to be taken into account.
- Since the development and release timeframe is short, the documentation needs to be created in parallel to development and testing phase.