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Re: Striving To Increase The Page Count Was: Estimation of
Subject:Re: Striving To Increase The Page Count Was: Estimation of From:"CB Casper" <knowone -at- surfy -dot- net> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Mon, 03 Jan 2005 09:55:37 -0800
We use page count at the project planning stage to
estimate the engineer-months necessary for the task.
We also include the estimated percentage of the task
that can be performed through outsourcing, if at all.
When we get down to editing, reviewing, and commenting
on the document, we publish the page count in the
accompanying email as a means for reviewers to judge
the amount of time they'll need to set aside for the
review.
While we are doing the writing, we strive to be as
concise and precise as possible, and drive the page
count down as much as possible. We aren't as focused
on this for web-only documents, but are very conscious
of it when producing documents to be printed.
Our installation guides are printed locally (at the
manufactuing sites worldwide) and with production
in the thousands per month, a few pages add up quickly.
We expect our customers to use the installation
guides just for installation and then to toss the doc
into the recycle bin, so we expect that these docs
to be temporary.
The content is also contained within the support guide
available on the web, so customers can still obtain
the information after they toss the install docs.
Our managers know all of this and actively encourage
writers to keep the page count down.
Concerning the page count for a support guide, there
is a balance between too big and no one will read it,
and too small where it is perceived as not being a
serious document.
Previous history with similar products and from
competitors can provide a good estimate of what the
doc size may be.
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