How Users Read and Interact with Technical Documentation: UX Research with Real Users

We often talk about how to write documentation — but how is it actually read? Are our assumptions correct? What does a product user really do when searching for information or trying to solve a problem? Surprisingly, there is very little research on this.

I took part in organising three such studies: we invited customers to a UX lab, observed them working with our products, interviewed them about the documentation, and gave them tasks to complete.