Rebuilding Orbital’s Documentation

I joined Orbital as the sole technical writer. The documentation was outdated, fragmented across platforms, and didn’t reflect the current product. No information architecture. No analytics. No process for keeping docs aligned with releases. My job was to rebuild the entire system.

The Problem

Orbital had three products: Merchant Payments API, Global Payments API, and Client Portal. Each had documentation scattered in different places. The API endpoints lived in Postman collections that cost the company a separate subscription. The knowledge base was incomplete. Merchants trying to integrate had to piece together information from multiple sources.

There was no single place a merchant could go to understand how to integrate, test, and go live.

Unifying Three Products into One Documentation Experience

The first decision was architectural. Three products, one documentation site. I redesigned the entire ReadMe site to match current branding and built an information architecture that unified everything into a single coherent experience.

This meant deciding what content types to use, how to organise them, and how to make the navigation intuitive for merchants at different stages. A merchant integrating the Payments API needed different content from someone managing payouts in the Client Portal, but both needed to feel like they were using the same product.

Migrating 40+ API Endpoints from Postman

One of the biggest wins was migrating 40+ API endpoints from Postman into ReadMe. This eliminated a redundant paid subscription and saved the company $700+ annually. More importantly, it meant the API reference lived alongside the rest of the documentation instead of in a separate tool.

Each endpoint needed to be verified against the actual API behaviour, with accurate parameter descriptions, response schemas, and error states.

Building the Knowledge Base

I created 75+ new knowledge base pages covering merchant onboarding, Client Portal operations, security configuration, and integration guides. I built merchant onboarding checklists using ReadMe Recipes so merchants had a clear, step-by-step path from “I just signed up” to “I’m processing payments.”

Analytics and Measurement

I set up analytics tracking with both ReadMe and Google Analytics so we could actually measure what was working. Which pages merchants visited most. Where they dropped off. Which search terms returned no results. Without measurement, documentation improvements are guesswork.

Embedding Docs into the Development Cycle

Documentation that lives outside the development cycle goes stale. I embedded docs into the process through a Jira-based planning system where every feature ticket had a documentation status field. I presented documentation roadmaps to product leadership so docs were part of the release conversation, not an afterthought.

The Outcome

The role ended due to company-wide layoffs, but by that point the documentation system was fully operational. Structured, measurable, and integrated into how the product team shipped.