Validating AI Generated Content for Technical Documentation

We continue our series on helping you implement AI into your daily workflow.

So far, we’ve explored how AI can assist with topic generation, outlining, and more. However, the journey doesn’t end with AI-generated content.

In this guide, we’ll emphasize the critical importance of refining and validating AI’s output to ensure accuracy, relevance, and alignment with your company’s voice and style.

AI is a powerful tool, but it’s not a replacement for human expertise. While AI can generate content quickly and efficiently, it’s essential to remember that it’s only as good as the data it’s trained on.

That’s why critical review and refinement are crucial steps in the AI-assisted documentation process. By adding your human touch, you can transform AI-generated content into high-quality, accurate, and user-friendly documentation that truly serves your audience.

Before you Start

This tutorial is designed for technical writers, editors, and anyone involved in creating and maintaining technical documentation. To get the most out of this guide, you should have:

• Experience with Technical Writing: A solid understanding of technical writing principles, style guides, and documentation best practices.

• Familiarity with AI Tools: Experience using AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini for content generation.

• A Critical Eye: A strong ability to identify errors, inconsistencies, and areas for improvement in written content.

The Reality: AI Isn’t Perfect (Yet!)

It’s tempting to think that AI can handle all the heavy lifting when it comes to content creation. However, AI-generated content often requires significant refinement to meet the standards of professional technical documentation.

AI can make mistakes, misinterpret technical concepts, and generate content that is inconsistent with your company’s voice and style.

The Human Touch: Ensuring Accuracy, Relevance, and Style

Refining and validating AI-generated content involves a combination of technical expertise, critical thinking, and attention to detail. It’s about adding the human touch to ensure that your documentation is accurate, relevant, and aligned with your brand.

Practical Steps: Refining and Validating AI Content

Here’s a step-by-step guide to refining and validating AI-generated content for technical documentation:

1. Verify Technical Accuracy: This is the most crucial step. Always double-check the technical information generated by AI. Don’t assume that the AI is correct. Cross-reference with reliable sources, consult with subject matter experts, and test the steps yourself to ensure accuracy.

   • Code Examples: Carefully review all code examples generated by AI. Test the code to ensure that it works as expected and that it adheres to coding best practices.

   • API References: Verify that API endpoints, parameters, and response codes are accurate and up-to-date.

   • Troubleshooting Steps: Test all troubleshooting steps to ensure that they resolve the reported issues.

2. Assess Relevance and Completeness: Determine whether the AI-generated content is relevant to your target audience and whether it covers all the essential information.

   • Target Audience: Consider the skill level and knowledge of your target audience. Is the content appropriate for their needs?

   • Scope and Coverage: Does the content cover all the necessary topics and concepts? Are there any gaps in the information?

   • User Needs: Does the content address the specific questions and pain points that your users are likely to have?

3. Refine for Clarity and Conciseness: Technical documentation should be clear, concise, and easy to understand. Refine the AI-generated content to improve its readability and ensure that it’s accessible to your target audience.

   • Simplify Language: Use clear and simple language. Avoid jargon and technical terms that may not be familiar to your audience.

   • Break Up Long Paragraphs: Break up long paragraphs into shorter, more manageable chunks.

   • Use Visuals: Incorporate visuals, such as screenshots, diagrams, and videos, to enhance understanding.

4. Enforce Style Guide Compliance: Ensure that the AI-generated content adheres to your company’s style guide. This includes grammar, punctuation, capitalization, terminology, and tone of voice.

   • Grammar and Punctuation: Use a grammar checker or style analyzer to identify and correct any errors in grammar and punctuation.

   • Terminology: Ensure that you are using consistent and approved terminology throughout your documentation.

   • Tone of Voice: Maintain a consistent tone of voice that aligns with your company’s brand and values.

5. Check for Plagiarism: Always check AI-generated content for plagiarism to ensure that it’s original and doesn’t infringe on the copyright of others.

   • Plagiarism Checkers: Use a plagiarism checker to scan the content for any instances of copied or paraphrased material.

   • Source Attribution: If you use information from external sources, be sure to properly attribute the source.

6. Seek Feedback and Iterate: Share the refined content with your colleagues, subject matter experts, and target users to gather feedback. Use this feedback to further improve the accuracy, relevance, and clarity of your documentation.

   • Internal Review: Ask your colleagues to review the content for technical accuracy and style.

   • User Testing: Conduct user testing to see how real users interact with the documentation and identify any areas that need improvement.

   • Gather Feedback: Collect feedback through surveys, forums, and other channels.

Example Scenario:

Let’s say you used AI to generate a troubleshooting guide for a common software error. After reviewing the content, you might:

• Correct: A technical inaccuracy in the suggested solution.

• Add: A missing step in the troubleshooting process.

• Simplify: A complex explanation to make it easier for novice users to understand.

• Adjust: The tone of voice to be more empathetic and supportive.

The Benefits: High-Quality Documentation You Can Trust

By refining and validating AI-generated content, you can achieve the following benefits:

• Accuracy: Ensure that your documentation is technically accurate and reliable.

• Relevance: Provide content that is relevant to your target audience and addresses their specific needs.

• Clarity: Make your documentation clear, concise, and easy to understand.

• Consistency: Maintain a consistent style and tone of voice throughout your documentation.

• Trust: Build trust with your users by providing high-quality documentation that they can rely on.

Next Steps: The AI-Human Partnership

While you can use AI to help you create technical documentation more efficiently, remember that AI is not a replacement for human expertise.

By refining and validating AI-generated content, you can ensure that your documentation is accurate, relevant, and aligned with your company’s brand.

About the Authors

This article was brought to you by I Heart Technical Writing, a team of passionate technical writers dedicated to providing tools, templates, and tutorials for the technical documentation community. Visit our website at https://www.ihearttechnicalwriting.com/ to learn more.

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