Laura Elizabeth is a designer and the founder of 3 products: Client Portal (a super simple way to store your clients' deliverables), Design Academy (a design course for developers), and Project Pack (sets of templates and documents for freelancers and agencies).
We moved our documentation (here's why)
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Hey Reader, For years, I used Client Portal to host Client Portal's own documentation. It worked well - showed off how flexible the product is, and honestly it looked good. But as the product grew and the documentation got more complex, I needed something built specifically for documentation. Search functionality, version tracking, that sort of thing. So I've moved everything over to a dedicated documentation platform (π FernDesk), and the difference is significant. π Take me to the new docs!β What's better:Everything's easier to find - proper search and better organization mean you're not hunting through pages. Articles are more thorough with clearer screenshots. And the docs now do a better job of explaining why you'd use certain features, not just how. Why this matters (beyond just better docs):This move actually reflects something I believe strongly about how tools should work: each one should do one thing really well, rather than trying to do everything adequately. Client Portal's brilliant for portfolios, client resources, course materials, knowledge bases. Dedicated documentation platforms are brilliant for product docs at scale. Project management tools are brilliant for task tracking. Design tools are brilliant for design work. The point of Client Portal has never been to replace all of these. It's to bring them together into one branded interface so your clients aren't hunting through six different platforms to find what they need. You keep using whatever tools you love for the actual work. Client Portal just gives your clients one place to access it all. (I've written more about why this approach matters here, because I think it's important.) For existing customers: You'll get answers faster, and you might discover features you didn't know existed. For everyone else: The docs give you a much clearer picture of what Client Portal actually does and whether it's the right fit for what you need π Check out our new help centerβ If there's anything you wish the documentation covered better, let me know. I'm reading replies and making updates. βLaura |
Laura Elizabeth
Laura Elizabeth is a designer and the founder of 3 products: Client Portal (a super simple way to store your clients' deliverables), Design Academy (a design course for developers), and Project Pack (sets of templates and documents for freelancers and agencies).
Hey Reader, After the recent demo video, quite a few people got in touch asking for a closer look at the portal I used as an example. So I've written it up properly, with a live version you can click around in and a template you can download and import straight into Client Portal. π Take a look at the portal and download the template It's built around a web design project, so if that's the kind of work you do it should be pretty useful as a starting point. But even if it isn't, it's a decent...
Hey Reader, That was quicker than expected. The update is live π₯³ you can grab it now from your WordPress dashboard. If you'd like a full walkthrough of what's new, I put together a short video here. For everyone else, here's the TLDR: Better theme compatibility This has been a pain point for a lot of you. We've added CSS isolation for non-block themes and page builders, so your portal should now display correctly regardless of what theme you're running. If this has been causing you grief,...
Hey Reader, I've been working on some improvements to Client Portal behind the scenes for a while now, and I wanted to share what's coming over the next few months. I'm so excited for this next release. Not because I'm adding loads of flashy features, but because I'm focusing on the details that make Client Portal a joy to use. Here's what that looks like in practice. Making file uploads less confusing This is a work-in-progress, but I wanted to share a preview because it's pretty exciting....