Dev Wiki
Saving Tableau developers time with organized, usable, and reliable engineering documentation.
Problem
Internal wiki documentation of software development practices at Tableau was in need of a refresh. Topics were documented in multiple places and not up to date, slowing down developers when they were onboarding, configuring re-imaged machines, or changing projects.
Goal
Organized, accurate, single source of truth documentation for engineering workflow processes and configurations easily found by browse or search with the ability to monitor quality to keep it up to date over time.
My role
I was the Team Lead and worked with a Technical Writer and Infrastructure and Product Developers to write the documentation.
I played a wide range of roles: Program Manager, Data Analyst, Information Architect, Visual Designer, User Researcher, Front-End Developer, Technical Writer, and Content Strategist.
Timeline
Simplifying wiki space categories
Browse the Learning space
Centralizing documentation needed by engineers across different teams into the Learning Space made it easier to use and manage. It resolved confusion over where cross-team documentation could be found and made it possible to search that official collection separate from less reliable team-specific pages.
I custom coded new landing pages that facilitated discovering new and popular information based on analysis of space traffic and a feedback survey to monitor page quality.
Browse a section
Documentation usability
I chose topics to update based on user research and developer personas to have the greatest impact. While we re-wrote the documentation, I also created a style guide that we implemented to make pages easier to find and use.
SEO to ensure the official page appeared in the top three search results making it easy to find and reduce wasted click throughs.
Topic navigation for multi-page topics make it easy to get an overview and jump between pages.
The table of contents provides an overview of the page and a way to skip down.
Contacts are available to make getting additional help faster and easier.
Quick starts front-load the information needed to dive right in as many prefer.
Related resources shows other popular content that is connected, making it easy to learn about interrelated subjects.
Numbered steps visually signal a procedure and make it easier to follow as well as easy to locate in the page.
Inline code formatting separates commands from regular text making directions easier to make sense of and easy to keep your place in.
Message boxes bring attention to important tips, notes, warnings, and info.
A feedback survey monitors the page health for accuracy and relevancy.
The footer at the end of every page provides access to the most important generic resources to learn local terms, set up, onboard, or get help.