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Subject:Re: How to Start? From:"Dana Worley" <dana -at- campbellsci -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Thu, 17 May 2001 09:49:37 -0600
From: Hassan KAMAL ALI <hka1968 -at- yahoo -dot- com>
> A new module has been developed and I am responsible for covering
> the technical communication for it: print and online documentation.
>
> My request is from where I should start and how
In answer to the "how to start" question, I typically begin with
documenting all the controls of the software, and then I fill in the
gaps from there.
For instance, with on-line help, my first step is to develop all the
context sensitive help (that is, providing help for each field, button,
drop-down list, etc). Then I will document any overall concepts that
the user is going to need to know. If I think a tutorial of some type
is needed for one or more tasks, I'll do that too.
For written documentation it is essentially the same. First I'll
document all the tasks that a user may want to perform (I DON'T
document the field level type of stuff that is contained in the on-line
help). Then, I'll go back and fill in the gaps to include why you
might want to do the task, what all can be accomplished, any
problems, pitfalls, etc.
I actually came across a document somewhere the other day that
suggested this method as a good way to create documentation. It
was nice to see that at least one other person thought this was a
logical way to go about the documentation process! (What? I'm
doing something right??)
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