The article critiques 'documentation theater'—creating docs merely to check boxes rather than addressing user needs. It argues that performative documentation done for compliance or following frameworks without purpose is worse than having no docs, and calls on tech writers to prioritize user needs over form and templates.
After 15 years of reading rather than writing, the author overcomes long-standing fears of public mistakes and inadequate expertise to begin technical writing. Prompted by AI-generated content saturation and equipped with new tools for learning, the author now views writing as a valuable process for testing understanding regardless of audience size.
Help Centers fall behind product documentation as development velocity increases, especially with AI coding agents. Traditional approaches like docs checkboxes and quarterly audits fail at daily release cycles, while modern AI-based solutions that monitor code changes risk over-sharing, missing context, and security issues.