Consultancy in technical documentation

Cherryleaf helps you find better ways to create and manage your content

Discover why it’s taking too long to create and publish information, and where improvements can be made. Plan for your future requirements, identify the tools and processes you need, and get the maximum value from the content you create.

You’ll get independent advice from our experts in technical communication. Cherryleaf will listen to your needs, develop a custom strategy, and hold your hand. We’ll execute this plan together, if you want.

How to create an award-winning developer portal

Case studies

Undertaking a new content strategy

A billion dollar software company needed to define a content strategy for its flagship product. The company had been spun off from its former parent company 24 months previously, and it needed to establish a strategy for supporting its customers with content for its newest release.

They needed to define the structure of their content writing teams, the types and flow of content to various points, a product taxonomy that enabled the content strategy, governance, and the appropriate technologies for creating and managing the content.

In partnership with another company, we conducted a series on interviews with key stakeholders, and analysed their existing setup. We carried out a content strategy gap analysis, looking at five key “pillars”, and recommended a way forward. This included providing a roadmap and a worked example.

The recommendations were accepted, with the client establishing a project delivery team to implement the suggested roadmap.

Creating API documents with writers located in different countries

Cherryleaf helped a software company in Hungary create hundreds of API user guides. They can publish these as PDFs or online.

Before, they wrote the documents in Word. These took a long time to create, and were inconsistent. They now keep re-usable information in a single place. As a result, it is much easier and faster for them to create new documents. They can create customised manuals for customers, adapted to their bespoke configurations.

Testimonials

We see an ongoing role for Cherryleaf as consultants who can help to get better documents out of the vast material we have added to the system. Very importantly, Cherryleaf were able to rapidly respond to our issues with the system and help us understand.

Dave Hughes, HCC Embedded CEO API documentation writing

We recently changed our authoring tooling. Cherryleaf came and did a spot of consultation to help us choose something that fit our use cases. I'd absolutely recommend their service if you want some help picking tooling.

Roger Hart, Red Gate Software Content Design and Strategy

Our content design and strategy consultancy services

Needs analysis and defining the Statement of Requirements

Audit and Review

Fixing any problems

Training your team

Needs analysis and defining the Statement of Requirements

Not certain what you need? We’ll work with you to define your requirements, establish metrics, and determine the ROI.

Audit and Review

Discover where your weaknesses lie. Let’s review and test your existing content. The review can be carried out through facilitated workshops, with your team members involved in this activity.

The activities can be:

  • Content inventory
  • Audience analysis
    • Who is your audience, and what do they want?
    • Customer Journey mapping
  • Reviewing your existing content and processes. We use a number of criteria, such as:
    • Readability
    • Usefulness/redundancy
    • Consistency
    • Tone and voice
    • Findability
    • Credibility
    • Usability
    • Translatability
  • Gap analysis
  • Workflow analysis – identify any bottlenecks.

Fixing any problems

This can include:

  • Establishing processes and standards
    • Style guides, voice and tone, and terminology databases
  • Developing an information model for the content
    • Establishing the information architecture
    • Defining the Information Types
    • Defining the metadata and templates
    • Identifying re-usable content
  • Identifying the right tools
  • Importing existing content into the new system
  • Providing writers and editors to create any missing content

Training your team

If you want to improve your team’s skills, we can provide facilitated workshops or training courses (see Introduction to Content Strategy training course).

Workshops work well in getting everyone onboard. For example: their roles and responsibilities, and how to produce content. They can also help you get your project on track, and prioritise activities.

You can look at:

  • Content planning
  • Information design
  • Users’ needs
  • Project goals
  • Standards
  • Best practices

Contact us

Want to discuss your situation and explore how Cherryleaf can help you?

You can tell us about your project, issues and goals. We’re here to help.

Contact us