Separating vs Bringing Together - Software Project Knowledge Base

Question

I am building a website with Atlassian's Confluence to fulfill these goals:

1. Document a complex project with multiple websites (Product Management)
2. Train non-technical staff to use it Store APIs, repositories, and libraries (Developer Documentation)
3. Test automation and quality assurance data and information
4. Will be re-used for final users (knowledge base and tutorials)

Note: the platform will be both used for internal and external users with different UIs.

My Confluence Sidebar has a tree structure which follows the same as the website pages

But one person from Quality Assurance asked to separate their part

My original idea was to make this test accounts child of Single Sign-On (contextual)

However, since the person (Quality Assurance) is already familiar with the platform he would like to have minimum information as possible.

However, that could cause a problem since new people are not familiar. Also, they avoid reading the website (they want to be explained in person) which makes documentation a waste of time.

Question: should I make the information architecture together (child and parent in the tree structure) or separate as per suggestion from quality assurance (current screenshots)?

I think this is an eternal dilemma, you try to separate things and it becomes hard to manage (inconsistent, error-prone, scattered and redundant info), while when you put things together people complain there is too much stuff to go through- I have conflicting feedback.

Question2: any other tips on how to solve this problem? Confluence has to search filters and I am making images and videos as much as I can but still looking on the best approach

Answer 1

What other information does Single Sign-On contain? Would it not be possible to put that under Quality Assurance, rather than the other way around?

Besides that I think it is always better to have a consistent architecture that follows strict rules. That way, even a new user could eventually figure any issue out by themselves, if they just adhere to the rules. Whereas introducing "exceptions" from the rules only makes those rules weaker, as users know that half of the time they do not apply anyway and, as a result, do not try to follow them.

Regarding the complaints of power users, isn't that what this functionality is for in Confluence? If there are not too many specific sites, you could link all crucial sub-pages in there.

Or make those power users bookmark the necessary pages. That would seem more reasonable than breaking the hierarchy.