Re: Defining Your Tasks

[Max Wyss <prodok -at- PRODOK -dot- CH>]

It is not uncommon that installation and maintenance manuals are written
without any access to the product. Of course, that's not for software or
consumer goods, but for heavy machinery and full plants.

I have been in a project for a few months, writing installation
instructions for a new gas turbine, where I only towards the end I had a
chance to see parts of that thing in real size. Before, the only
information I had were drawings and parts lists.

Of course, it would have been easier if I could have assisted when they
assembled it. But that was a bit too far away.


Max Wyss
PRODOK Engineering AG
Technical documentation and translations, Electronic Publishing
CH-8906 Bonstetten, Switzerland

Phone:  +41 1 700 29 21
Fax:  +41 1 700 20 37
e-mail:  mailto:prodok -at- prodok -dot- ch    or    100012 -dot- 44 -at- compuserve -dot- com
WWW:  http://www.prodok.ch/prodok


Bridging the Knowledge Gap


_______________



>NetBrett Thorson wrote:
>>
> Further more, I am wondering how you people write these documents
>without
>> even having a product made that you can show them.
>>
>> So in the end, I guess what I am asking is how do we as tech writers
>> discover what the user wants to do with the system, before they know what
>> the system can do?
>
>Amen to that!  Trying to write documentation while the product is still
>in the design phase is a bit difficult, but it seems to be the preferred
>mode of operating at least in the SV.   The last thing I worked on, I
>had to work mainly from the technical specifications, filling in by
>talking to the developer to see what was being added and deleted.  The
>best I could do was a skeleton doc, with some bits and pieces roughed
>out based on existing docs for applications with similar features.  Not
>at all an efficient use of a writer's time, but you've got to be doing
>something ;+)
>
>BJ