Subsection – A tool for creating support docs for SaaS (opens in new tab)

If you're pitching a managed platform for documentation, then the documentation for the product itself has to look and behave brilliantly. It's the showcase for your product. Unfortunately this doesn't seem to do that. The website seems to have a confused mix of styles and it quite hard to read somehow. Also, grammar is super-important in this domain - I see SaaS has already been picked up, but it's also super-weird to see the plural of Documentation being Documentations. Reading the terms and privacy is also hard work - there's lots more work on grammar required here, too.

The focus seems a bit blurred, too. The claim is that it's for Support, User Guides, Knowledge Bases, Documentation and Change Logs. But the features list also talks about multuple Blogs. It's not at all clear where they fit in.

Also, being misled is a massive turn-off. First you say "User Guides + Knowledge Bases + Documentations + Changelogs", but then caveat it with "Currently offering User Guides only". But then later on the same page you say "Apps like Intercom, Crisp, and Helpscout, offer only one aspect of support pages and that is Knowledge Bases. Subsection covers all four: User Guides, Knowledge Bases, Documentations, and Changelogs"

You don't cover all four, you _plan_ to cover all four in the future.

The idea is solid but as someone who is in the market for something like this, the product doesnt currently inspire confidence. Specifically, you’re a tool to create User Guides and yet you haven’t created a user guide for your own site. If you don’t have user guides for your own service that indicates a few possibilities:

- the tool is too difficult to use for even yourself to be worth it

- you don’t use your tool deeply so you don’t have intuitive understanding of what is needed to be improve

- you don’t actually take user guides seriously and think they are important for a company to provide

When looking at this kind of service I’m evaluating on two levels: my customers experience, and my authoring experience. By not having your own user guide filled out I’m unable to evaluate the end customer experience (search, navigation, etc).

I know you’re in beta, but I don’t know why you’d do a show HN without at least having your own user guide filled out. A big wasted opportunity.

[ Subsection is free to play with, without needing an email ]

Hey HN friends,

I have created this tool for any Saas that is currently missing Support Docs or wants to manage them all from a single spot.

Support Docs, such as: User Guides, Knowledge Bases, Documentations, and Changelogs.

The project started with me looking into how to create support docs for my other apps and couldn't find one that does it all.

Then found out that user guides and knowledge bases do rank pretty well for bottom-of-the-funnel customers = Subsection was born.

Currently you can only create a User Guide as I'm in the midst of deploying themes for KB, Docs, and Changelogs.

Would love to hear your thoughts.

Don't get discouraged by HN's negativity. The product may be a little rough around the edges but it's starting to look great, congrats on being on beta and good luck with the rest of the path.

Please don't ignore accessibility. Docs that aren't accessible are a big no-no and a dealbreaker for my company. I've had a quick look at your own userguide and the results aren't good.

https://www.accessibilitychecker.org/audit/?website=https%3A...

Even just the basics of alt text and sufficient colour contrast need fixing. This suggests accessibility hasn't been considered at all.

Some thoughts about your onboarding:

> Try a Free Demo / NO EMAIL REQUIRED

Ok, sure! I’m assuming this is a demo of documentation created in Subsection, so I’m not sure who would expect it to require email anyway. Click

> Free Demo

> Email is not required to test Subsection!

> Start

Ok, an entire screen to say that again? There’s nothing to do on this screen, so it seems completely unnecessary. How can “no email required” be the most important information about the demo anyway? But sure, click

> Demo Created

> You can now create your very first guide!

> Next

Another screen that says nothing and where I do nothing? I don’t even know in what way a demo was “created”. I just want to see what the documentation looks like, but I guess this is a demo of an admin interface. There’s a slow video here showing me things I can’t do on this screen. Am I supposed to memorize what happens in the video to use on a different screen?

After this I get into the admin UI which seems straightforward - I didn’t play around much with it, but it doesn’t look too complicated. You should jump here in a single step after I click the demo button on the landing page!

One of the most important aspects that doesn't seem to be covered here is data retention and ownership. Looking through the settings page I don't see any ways to eject and backup all the documentation that was invested into the project. Downloading the data as markdown or as a git repo is pretty important to be able to trust it won't be lost if you disappear or out grow the features of the service.

I'm in the market for one of these. Right now all alternatives that have embeddable forms and chat are weirdly expensive. Gitbook would be fantastic, but if you want to include some kind of help desk you're forced to take users off site. Which is a decision I can't quite understand. I mean, users go from the application, to gitlab, to an offsite help desk just to get an answer.

Really love the way you handled the demo.

Congrats! Small nitpick. Saas should be SaaS otherwise it looks like a misspelling.

Can this be used on premise?