Productive Documentation Projects – Portion 1 of 3 – Understanding’
The creation of consumer documentation is really a large element of any software program undertaking. Regrettably, it is frequently undervalued and left towards the last minute. But that does not suggest it really should be without having a superb conduite program.
This is the initial in a collection of three posts outlining the crucial elements of a superb consumer documentation approach. It really is type of an “ideal” process; extremely couple of tasks is going to be find here able to put into action every single action, plus some will call for additional steps. Nonetheless, it must supply you having an excellent basis (particularly if you’re new to consumer documentation administration).
Here’s an overview in the three content articles.
Post 1 (this post) – Comprehend
Identify your scope
Familiarise your self with the work environment
Familiarise your self with the item
Identify the audience for that documentation
Specify perceived audience needs
Roughly estimate doco task duration and right here sources
Research audience needs
Post 2 – Specify (See divinewrite /docoprocess2.htm)
State your goals
Write your idea specifications
Design some feasible implementations
Conduct usability screening on your prototypes
Write your specifications specifications
Estimate venture duration & sources
Conduct usability screening in your writing sample
Write your function pracs & style specs
Write-up 3 – Write (see divinewrite /docoprocess3.htm)
Write the doco
Manage production
So here goes
Recognize Your Project
Identify Your Scope
The first stage in any venture is to determine exactly what you’re expected to do. Generally this will happen before you take on the job, but it should still be the very first thing that you document. Identifying your scope involves figuring out where you fit while in the overall development procedure and where you fit in the company. No documentation undertaking is ever just documentation, so it really is important to know exactly what else is involved. Some in the other areas that documentation people are/should be commonly be involved in include:
Spec review
GUI review
Product consumer needs investigation
Documentation audience specifications investigation
Usability screening
All of these things are integral for the development method, and must be scheduled properly.
Familiarise Your self with the Operate Environment
Get to know everyone involved while in the item. For a computer software task, this will mean the task manager, the designers, and the guys that will probably be doing the low-level coding. Try to have a really good relationship with them. They have to respect you, otherwise they’re not likely to listen to much of what you have to say.
Familiarise Yourself using the Item
Find out what’s going to be involved while in the item. You need to know:
what are the goals with the development
what user needs they are trying to meet
how the item will likely be used
who is going to be making use of it
what the features from the product are
how the item will look and feel
will it demand a specific doco style? For instance, it may only run on the latest version of Windows, it may have a particular look and feel, a particular environment (that the help may have to be integrated into), etc.
These are all things that you may have input into, either through simple critique, or through input into consumer investigation needs. Try to read as much documentation as you can find, and interview as many people stakeholders as achievable. As you go, note down any issues you identify, any questions you have, or anything you think wants to become different.
Some (non-human) sources that you can utilise to achieve this include:
Feature and product specs
Project plans
Funding application documentation if applicable
Determine the Audience for that Documentation
Discuss using the undertaking manager (and other stakeholders esp. marketing) the perceived user/audience.
Specify Perceived Audience Needs
Make some educated guesses about audience specifications so you’ll have the ability to supply a rough estimate of item duration and resource needs.
Discuss with the project manager (and other stakeholders esp. marketing) the perceived user requirements that the help should satisfy. See if someone has researched consumer objectives, projects, and the mental models users employ when making use of the item (or similar products). If they haven’t, interview inhouse experts to determine perceived goals, tasks, mental models, etc.
Secondly, you should identify what the theory says about consumer documentation (i.e. documentation technique, visual considerations, indexing considerations, etc.). I recommend Minimalism Beyond the Nurnberg Funnel, (1998) edited by John M. Carroll.
Around estimate doco undertaking duration and resources
Although, by this stage, you don’t really know enough about the product or your audience requirements to know how long the documentation will take to complete, management will nevertheless like a rough estimate. This really is OK, as long as everyone is aware that it is an Extremely rough estimate, and subject to change pending further knowledge and investigation.
This initial estimate need to incorporate all from the time you’ll spend on the stages that occur before and after the writing stage. Remember, these stages are important, and really should not be short-changed. (TIP: In a well managed task, planning should take approx 30% of your time, writing 50%, production 19%, and evaluation 1%.)
Estimating pre-writing stages
Allowing for your pre-writing stages is trickier than allowing for writing. If you’re having trouble, estimate the writing stage, then base all other estimates on that, using the above figures as a guide.
Estimating writing and post-writing stages
Because you most likely still don’t know an excellent deal about the item or the users, your estimate here will probably be based primarily on a combination of past records, experience, intuition (gut feel), and industry standards in combination using the objectives and jobs you’ve already specified. Start using the following steps.
1. Estimate the quantity of function required to document the projects the consumer will want to perform to achieve their goals.
2. Track down any previous doco records. See should you can cross reference the time taken to produce similar doco inside the past with the current quantity estimate. Derive a figure based on this approach.
3. See how this compares using the estimate derived from industry standard figures (e.g., I think the current industry standard is to allow 1 day per page of documentation – this covers all drafts and reviews).
4. Compare the two figures and determine a superb compromise based in your experience and intuition.
5. Figure out how long you really have to do it, then how many writers you’ll want to get it done during this time.
6. Draw up a venture schedule utilizing something like Microsoft Venture. Don’t forget to allow time for recruiting, training, and writing work practices.
TIP: At this stage, you should create the initial draft of the Documentation Project Strategy. It must include or refer to all from the steps outlined in this document. Basically, it really should reflect the process advocated here, but be specific to the venture you are working on. It ought to also include a timeline.
Investigation Audience Needs
Study on the users from the item and the audience in the documentation is one from the most important parts of any successful item. However, it truly is also one from the most typically overlooked aspects of any venture. This generally occurs because decision makers feel they already know pretty much everything there is to know about the users and audience.
When managing a documentation task, you ought to investigate the chance of conducting investigation. If you’re employed late inside the product life cycle, you really should ask if user investigation has already been conducted for your item itself. If it hasn’t, there’s a superb chance you won’t get support for audience investigation.
Audience research ought to seek to determine:
user objectives (what the consumer hopes to achieve with the product)
user expectations in the doco (Manuals? Online help? Tutorials?, usability specifications, localisation specifications, etc.)
user mental models (how they already see online help, what impressions they have of it, etc.)
user jobs (how the consumer uses the product to achieve their goals)
which users perform what jobs (user/task matrix)
how long have users been doing these jobs?
which jobs are one-off and which are repeated?
did they ever do them differently?
do they do a variety of jobs, or there just a few?
do they hate doing it? (is it tedious, repetitive?)
do they find it difficult?
which duties are considered essential?
are they normally under pressure when they do the task?
are there other distractions (environmental, social, etc.)?
Some analysis methods to consider are:
Observation of users doing their operate in their function environment
Focus groups and interviews with users
Questionnaires
TIP: For more details on these methods, take a look at Managing Your Documentation Tasks by Hackos (1994), Consumer and Task Analysis for Interface Design by Hackos & Redish (1998), Social Marketing: New Imperative for Public Health by Manoff (1985), Designing Qualitative Investigation 2nd Edition by Marshall & Rossman (1995), and “Conducting Focus Groups – A Guide for First-Time Users”, in Marketing Intelligence and Planning by Tynan & Drayton (1988).
To be continuedSee part 2 of this article (divinewrite /docoprocess2.htm) for information on preparing your requirements.
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