Inspire

Start with Motivation – “Why I’ve done this and you should want to copy me” Keep it fun, keep it awesome

Make it Accessible

No geek speak/Jargon/TMFA ( Too many fucking acronyms)
Easy to understand language
Specify regional measurement systems
Communicate what parts do – so people can switch for local components
Make all files easily accessible for free (Note this does not mean you need to be dogmatically open source)
Reasonable cost
Further information links (Origins, inspiration, contact of creator)
Identify what people need to know before hand (so they can google and practice).

Shareable

Avoid silo’s, sign ups and paywalls, make it easy to copy, embed, share and link to

Easy

painless, simple, easy to do without breaking out of your awesome prototyping stride
should take 15 minutes rather than a day
easy to use and view

Adaptable

Make the documentation in open formats that others can add to, edit and build upon your work (to this end the original document can be found here)

The following guidelines are insights from our document-athon weekend, that brought together a range of Makers, and doers from across Berlin. Including: Stefania Druga, Dominic Wind, Sam Muirhead, Simon Hoeher, Emmanuel Schwarz, Hannah Perner-Wilson, and Kay Strasser. The Document-athon happened in Parallel with the Documentation Jam in New York

A full write up of the event is located here