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Re: Doc Design and Convention - to address Gene's take on this
Subject:Re: Doc Design and Convention - to address Gene's take on this From:Robert Lauriston <robert -at- lauriston -dot- com> To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Thu, 5 Nov 2009 12:49:58 -0800
Yeah, same here.
There are iterative loops within this process, but overall, first I
ask questions about the product, the answers tell me who the presumed
users are and what they need to know, and only then am I in a position
to outline the topics and outline the deliverables. It's often not
until I've written 80% of the content that I'm sure of exactly what
the deliverables should be, for example, whether I can have a single
document or need to break it up into separate documents for different
groups of users.
On Thu, Nov 5, 2009 at 12:36 PM, Gene Kim-Eng <techwr -at- genek -dot- com> wrote:
> Actually, I prefer to ask these questions about the product at development
> kick-off, and use the answers to develop the document plan and defne the
> document set. If I don't ask until I'm starting to think about specific
> documents, I've missed several large steps in my preferred process.
>
> If nobody can answer the questions at the earliest stages of development, I know
> I'm not going to have a pleasant experience.
>
> I'm glad to hear your thought process produces documents that work. You must
> not have written any of the ones on my "shelf of shame." :)
>
> Gene Kim-Eng
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Keith Hood" <klhra -at- yahoo -dot- com>
>
>
> Gene, when you think about what to put in a document, apparently you ask
> yourself the same set of questions no matter what the document type, but you
> formulate the answers differently for different types of documents. When I think
> about what to put in a document, I ask myself a different set of questions for
> each different type of document. The end result - a determination about what to
> put in the document - is the same. Six of one, eight minus two of the other. Big
> deal.
>
> The main issue is to make the resulting documents serve the customers' needs.
> This is an art, not a science, and there is plenty of room for variance in the
> thinking about how things are done. The biggest question of all to ask about a
> technical document is, does it work? Even though I apparently think in a
> different manner, the employers for whom I have written answer that question
> with the word "Yes." ...
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