Portfolio of work

The client had no existing official procedures for internal processes and had never worked with technical documentation. Recent staff turnover hightlighted a lack of codafied procedures, and the client wanted to ensure that all critical processes were in official, reviewed documents.

Quake Lake Industries developed a complete documentation strategy that included the following:

• Documentation development software recommendations
• Procedure templates
• Corporate documentation look-and-feel guidelines
• Document review process recommendations
• Document storage process recommendations
• Periodic update process recommendations based on criticality

The client had existing documentation that was obsolete, inconsistent, and scattered throughout the corporate infrastucture. The client's previous attempts to organize and centralize technical documentation had stalled due to conflicting opinions from stakeholders regarding technical document coverage, ownership, and review processes.

After consulting with stakeholders to determine the specific issues from past attempts, Quake Lake Industries recommended a documentation strategy that satisfied all stakeholders sufficiently to move the process ahead.

The client was a new company and had reached the beta phase of software development. Any existing product documentation was very informal, incomplete, and scattered.

Quake Lake Industries developed a complete technical documentation strategy that included the following:

• Document review process recommendations
• Corporate language recommendations
• Documentation development software recommendations
• UI and UX language recommendations
• Corporate documentation look-and-feel guidelines
• A candidate profile to hire a full-time employee technical writer

A city of approximately 1.3 million had experienced a severe natural disaster that uncovered major deficiencies in existing emergency response documentation. The existing material was either incomplete, very obsolete, or missing entirely.

Quake Lake Industries provided a comprehensive strategy to produce all new emergency response procedures, including the following:

• Documentation development software recommendations
• Document look-and-feel recommendations to avoid all delays during a future disaster
• Procedure coverage and depth recommendations
• Critical period update recommendations to avoid future obsolescence
• Review process recommendation to include all relevant stakeholders and meet regulatory guidelines

The client was so pleased that Quake Lake Industries was also engaged to develop a non-emergency reference documentation strategy for the same civic department.

A supplier of military-grade electronics was frustrated by increasing support costs driven by the customer's preference to contact the supplier directly with questions rather than using product documentation.

The supplier engaged Quake Lake Industries to determine how product documentation could be improved to act as a viable first-line product support method and reduce the load on support personnel.

After discussing the situation with stakeholders and investigating the existing documentation, Quake Lake Industries made recommendations to significantly simplify several aspects of the existing documentation and to split the material into smaller, more digestible pieces to increase usability.

A developer of complex natural resource management software engaged Quake Lake Industries to develop a documentation strategy.

The developer had existing documentation, but the complex nature of the software produced unreasonably large manuals that the developer struggled to maintain and customers struggled to use.

After discussions with stakeholders and product research, Quake Lake Industries recommended ways to integrate contextual documentation into the software product rather than supplying enormous manuals that attempted to cover everything in one place.

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