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Create tactic article about creating effective visual or multimedia content

Create a Good Docs Project tactic article about creating effective visual or multimedia content in documentation. This is a pretty large topic, so it might end up being a series of articles.

See The Good Docs Project tactic articles for more information about what a tactic article is.

Definition of done

Tactic articles are written using the same processes, workflows, and teams as a template project. However, they are published on the website instead of in the template repository.

A tactic article template project is considered complete when it has progressed through all the template writing phases and when it has been merged into the website.

Tactic article writing phases

To be considered complete, a tactic article must progress through each template writing phase:

  • Research phase - When you first start a tactic article, you begin by researching examples and best practices for that article. This phase ends when you create your resources document for that article.
  • Rough draft phase - After you conclude your research, you create a draft of your tactic article in Google Docs. This phase ends when you schedule your drafts for review by other members of your working group or community.
  • Community review phase - When your tactic article is ready for review, your working group lead will schedule 1-2 sessions in the community where other members of the project will review and provide feedback on your template files deliverables. This phase ends after you incorporate the feedback into your draft and your drafts are in a final state.
  • Editorial review phase - When your draft is in a state where you feel it is ready to get merged in, you can work with your working group lead to request an editorial team review. The template editorial team is composed of experienced members of the project who review your template project to ensure that it follows best practices for technical writing, has no major organization or structural issues, has no obvious gaps or missing content, is consistent with our style guide.
  • Final review phase - When your tactic article is in a final state, you convert it from Google Docs into Markdown and open a merge request to add your template to the website repository. The template leads will review the template and possibly request additional changes. This phase ends when the article is merged into the repository.

See the Templates CONTRIBUTING guide for guidance about these phases. You can also receive help from your working group leads and members about how to move your template project through each phase.

Want to work on this tactic article?

Great! Make sure you follow our contributing guidelines:

  1. Check that the article is unassigned. If it is assigned, you might be able to work with the current assignee as a paired writer.
  2. Join The Good Docs Project by attending a Welcome Wagon meeting. You will get access to The Good Docs Project Slack workspace after scheduling or attending this meeting.
  3. Read the Templates CONTRIBUTING guide.
  4. You are strongly encouraged to join one of the working groups to get valuable support from the community such as mentorship, Git training, and helpful feedback as you contribute to your first template.
  5. Request access to the templates and website repository by joining the #tech-requests channel in Slack and posting a request.
  6. Assign yourself to an issue for the article that you want to work on.
  7. Add the Template phase:: Research label to the issue.
  8. Attend your template working group regularly to receive support and resources for your project.
Edited by Alyssa Rock