Documentation is crucial for MVP created on Bubble.io for several reasons:

• Onboarding and training:

  Documentation helps new team members understand how the MVP was built, the features it offers, and the underlying logic. This helps them get up to speed quickly and reduces the learning curve.

• Bug fixing and maintenance:

  Documentation provides valuable insights into the structure of the MVP, enabling developers to locate and fix bugs more efficiently. It also helps them understand how different components are interconnected, allowing for easier maintenance and updates.

• User support:

  Documentation serves as a self-help resource for stakeholders, enabling them to troubleshoot common issues and find answers to their questions. This reduces the need for additional support and improves the overall working experience.

• Scalability and collaboration:

  Proper documentation allows teams to collaborate effectively during the development process. Team members can reference the documentation to understand the purpose and functionality of various components, facilitating teamwork and preventing redundancy.

• Knowledge transfer:

  Documentation can act as a knowledge base for future development or handover to new teams. It ensures that vital project information is not lost when team members leave and helps maintain continuity in development.

• Project transparency: Well-documented MVPs provide insight into the development process, allowing stakeholders to understand and evaluate the project's progress.

Here is my process of creating and maintaining the documentation:

Onboarding stakeholders:

• Everyone who is involved in the creation and maintenance of the project such as the project owner, Client, developers, and QA should be consulted to discuss what would they like to receive from the documentation or I can say what the key pain points they are looking forward to resolving through this documentation.

  Format of documentation:

  • Well-formatted documentation will provide exponential speed to grasp its content amongst all old and/or new stakeholders. For example, a new developer may need 2 hours to read, understand and relate to the first topic of documentation with an existing application but it will be reduced by up to 75% on the 5th topic if the format is the same throughout overall documentation.

  • Here is my format:

    • Topic: Title of the functionality/element/workflow/plugin/data.

    • Description: what is the purpose of this functionality/element/workflow/plugin/data for existing in this software?

    • Tags: Key highlights which will be expected for this topic to be touched such as page name, data type, data field, data relation, API, Backend workflow, Plugin etc. From this whoever is starting to read a particular topic will be able to prepare for what he/she can expect this topic to be referenced to in the software. The more specific the tag, the more it will be helpful.

    • Business Logic: This is the most important part because as a developer no matter how skilled you are, if the business logic is not clear, the functionality won't work as it was supposed to. A new person onboarded for software development, modification or Quality assurance has to understand why things were created and what users will expect from the functionality related to this topic.

    • Process: What will be the process of working on this functionality as a developer or QA or user? The steps by which stakeholders can check whether things are working as they should or not.

    • Consequences: Suppose this thing is not working as it should, which other parts of the software it will impact? In which functionalities will there be an effect because of bugs related to this topic? These kinds of things will be covered in this section.

    • Logistics: In Bubble.io software, where can I find elements, workflows, groups, APIs, and Plugin related to this topic?

    • Related Topics: In Bubble, the way we define the relation between the data field and with data type will be the same concept for defining the relation between topics. Suppose a new developer got interested in one topic which was indexed as topic no 17 and can refer to topic no 203 next because topic no 203 is related to topic no 17.

    • Internal comment in the documentation: Different stakeholders can ask questions, raise issues, appreciate (don't expect but who doesn't like some appreciation ;) )and answer the questions related to the topic. This will complete the whole circle of documentation.

    • Bubble.io comments: Bubble.io provides a facility on each element and workflow editor which can be used as a comment. Here is an example:

      

      From this every element, workflow, and action will have its own individual documentation which will cover the technical aspects of that action/element/workflow.

  • Modification: Documentation needs to be updated and well-maintained from time to time which will make it relevant and easy for stakeholders to catch up with the current version of the application up and running.

    In conclusion, documentation is of utmost importance for an MVP created on Bubble.io. It serves multiple purposes, such as onboarding new team members, facilitating bug fixing and maintenance, providing user support, enabling scalability and collaboration, ensuring knowledge transfer, and promoting project transparency. When creating documentation for an MVP on Bubble.io, it is essential to thoroughly understand the MVP, identify the specific areas that need documentation, choose the right format, document the overall architecture and individual components, provide usage instructions and troubleshooting tips, include best practices, and continuously update the documentation. By following these steps, you can create comprehensive and effective documentation that will greatly benefit your MVP development process.

To discuss more, connect with me here.