Documentation isn’t always the most captivating read, but it is an essential tool for answering questions and providing guidance when users get stuck. It’s crucial to keep Confluence documentation concise and focused, ensuring users can quickly find the information they need without getting bogged down in lengthy explanations.
Your efforts in creating documentation in Confluence will be ineffective if your readers cannot find the right information. This is especially important in a tool like Confluence, where pages can be quickly added. Your team needs to maintain consistency in the Confluence documentation structure and naming of your pages.
When creating content in Confluence, remember these points:
This article will cover essential best practices for Confluence documentation management systems and highlight apps to optimize this process.
Before you start writing, you should know that your users have plenty of ways to find the content they’re looking for. Each Confluence user has different search habits, but common approaches include using the page tree or Confluence’s built-in search.
Even with a search bar available, many users prefer navigating through the structure using the page tree on the left. Consistency in your Confluence documentation structure and naming conventions is beneficial for this type of user, as it allows those who may not be familiar with the search functions to locate the information they need easily.
Confluence’s search functionality often provides the fastest way for users to find what they’re looking for. After entering a specific search term, users can narrow down the results by filtering for space, contributor, label, or date.
If the results are still unsatisfactory, here are some options to modify the search:
Atlassian Intelligence and Rovo transform the Confluence search into an even more powerful knowledge search tool. You can enter your questions in full sentences and receive an answer in natural language, including the Confluence page from which the answers originate.
These AI-powered tools provide a customized artificial intelligence experience for you, your teams, and your workflows by combining open-source, self-hosted and 3rd party hosted models.
If you use Viewtracker – Analytics for Confluence, you can quickly find the most frequent search terms and those that returned no results. Improve your Confluence documentation by using this data to rewrite page titles, create new labels, and pinpoint areas where content may be missing.
Structure your Confluence documentation
While adding content to a Confluence page is simple, managing multiple ideas on one page can be challenging. Avoid cramming too much information onto one page. Instead, think of structuring your topic like an onion—start with a general overview and delve deeper into each topic layer. A clear presentation of information will make it easier for your users to find what they need.
One of the best practices for structuring documentation in Confluence documentation is to create sub-pages or link to pages with specific labels.
A useful tool for adding structure in Confluence documentation is Navitabs – Navigation Macros for Confluence, which enables the creation of clickable tabs displayed either horizontally or vertically. Using the macro “Tab Wizard,” you can create tabs from existing pages, pages with labels, and frames or by typing in your content. This allows you to display information in easy-to-read sections, giving readers access to all the information they need on a single page. Additionally, Navitabs’ tab design options in Cloud and Data Center make your page visually appealing.
Help users navigate your page using panels, like standard Confluence panels (info, tip, note, warning) or customized panels with Advanced Panelboxes. These can increase clarity for users, especially on overview pages.
Always keep your audience’s needs and goals in mind to make sure your Confluence documentation is helpful and relevant. Predict what they might ask and write with those questions in mind, focusing on how they’ll use the documentation.
Pay attention to Confluence’s search parameters that influence how easily users can locate information:
Clear and descriptive titles and subtitles are essential for easy navigation and information retrieval. Consistent naming conventions and unique titles will bring clarity to your organization. A clear structure with headings and a table of contents will also help readers find what they are looking for.
Or you could get creative and place the macro within an Advanced Panelbox macro with a specified title, like this:
If your documentation caters to a global audience, consider offering translations. With the Translations for Confluence, you can add numerous languages to any page. This is particularly beneficial for pages with high traffic, allowing you to prioritize translations using analytics tools to identify the most important pages first.
In order to efficiently translate your content, when using Cloud, we suggest using Atlassian Intelligence. The translation process can be sped up by integrating it with Translations for Confluence. AI-driven suggestions improve content quality by exploring different phrasing and perspectives, and translations are generated in seconds. It is important to prioritize the task and translate the pages with the most views and/or interactions first. Using tools like Viewtracker or the built-in analytics in Confluence Cloud, you can quickly establish and translate the most important pages first.
Multilingual content on pages allows Confluence to find relevant terms and keywords in multiple languages and display more relevant search results to international readers.
Effective documentation is the cornerstone of successful knowledge sharing. By combining clarity, comprehensiveness, and organization, you create a valuable resource accessible to all.
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