The creation of user documentation is a big component of any software
project. Unfortunately, it’s often undervalued and left to the last
minute. But that doesn’t mean it should be without a good management
plan.
This is the first in a series of three articles outlining the key
elements of a good user documentation process. It’s kind of an “ideal”
process; very few projects will be able to implement every step, and
some will require additional steps. Nonetheless, it should provide you
with a good foundation (especially if you’re new to user documentation
management).
Here’s an overview of the three articles.
Article 1 (this article) – Understand
• Identify your scope
• Familiarise yourself with the work environment
• Familiarise yourself with the product
• Identify the audience for the documentation
• Specify perceived audience requirements
• Roughly estimate doco project duration and resources
• Research audience requirements
Article 2 – Specify (See http://www.divinewrite.com/docoprocess2.htm)
• State your goals
• Write your concept specifications
• Design some possible implementations
• Conduct usability testing on your prototypes
• Write your requirements specifications
• Estimate project duration & resources
• Conduct usability testing on your writing sample
• Write your work pracs & design specs
Article 3 – Write (see http://www.divinewrite.com/docoprocess3.htm)
• Write the doco
• Manage production
So here goes…
Understand Your Project
Identify Your Scope
The first step in any project is to identify exactly what you’re
expected to do. Generally this will happen before you take on the job,
but it should still be the first thing that you document. Identifying
your scope involves figuring out where you fit in the overall
development process and where you fit within the company. No
documentation project is ever just documentation, so it’s important to
know exactly what else is involved. Some of the other areas that
documentation people are/should be commonly be involved in include:
• Spec review
• GUI review
• Product user requirements research
• Documentation audience requirements research
• Usability testing
All of these things are integral to the development process, and should be scheduled properly.
Familiarise Yourself with the Work Environment
Get to know everyone involved in the product. For a software project,
this will mean the project manager, the designers, and the guys that
will be doing the low-level coding. Try to have a really good
relationship with them. They have to respect you, otherwise they’re not
going to listen to much of what you have to say.
Familiarise Yourself with the Product
Find out what’s going to be involved in the product. You must know:
• what are the goals of the development
• what user requirements they are trying to meet
• how the product will be used
• who will be using it
• what the features of the product are
• how the product will look and feel
• will it require a specific doco design? 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 user research requirements. Try
to read as much documentation as you can find, and interview as many
people stakeholders as possible. As you go, note down any issues you
identify, any questions you have, or anything you think needs to be
different.
Some (non-human) sources that you can utilise to achieve this include:
• Feature and product specifications
• Project plans
• Funding application documentation if applicable
Identify the Audience for the Documentation
Discuss with the project manager (and other stakeholders esp. marketing) the perceived user/audience.
Specify Perceived Audience Requirements
Make some educated guesses about audience requirements so you’ll be
able to provide a rough estimate of product duration and resource
requirements.
Discuss with the project manager (and other stakeholders esp.
marketing) the perceived user requirements that the help must satisfy.
See if someone has researched user goals, tasks, and the mental models
users employ when using the product (or similar products). If they
haven’t, interview inhouse experts to identify perceived goals, tasks,
mental models, etc.
Secondly, you should identify what the theory says about user
documentation (i.e. documentation approach, visual considerations,
indexing considerations, etc.). I recommend Minimalism Beyond the
Nurnberg Funnel, (1998) edited by John M. Carroll.
Roughly estimate doco project 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 nonetheless like a rough estimate.
This is OK, as long as everyone is aware that it is a VERY rough
estimate, and subject to change pending further knowledge and research.
This initial estimate must incorporate all of the time you’ll spend on
the stages that occur before and after the writing stage. Remember,
these stages are important, and should not be short-changed. (TIP: In a
well managed project, planning should take approx 30% of your time,
writing 50%, production 19%, and evaluation 1%.)
Estimating pre-writing stages
Allowing for the 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 probably still don’t know a great deal about the product or
the users, your estimate here will be based primarily on a combination
of past records, experience, intuition (gut feel), and industry
standards in combination with the goals and tasks you’ve already
specified. Start with the following steps.
1. Estimate the quantity of work required to document the tasks the user will need to perform to achieve their goals.
2. Track down any previous doco records. See if you can cross reference
the time taken to produce similar doco in the past with the current
quantity estimate. Derive a figure based on this method.
3. See how this compares with 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 good compromise based on your experience and intuition.
5. Figure out how long you actually have to do it, then how many writers you’ll need to get it done during this time.
6. Draw up a project schedule using something like Microsoft Project.
Don’t forget to allow time for recruiting, training, and writing work
practices.
TIP: At this stage, you should write the first draft of the
Documentation Project Plan. It should include or refer to all of the
steps outlined in this document. Basically, it should reflect the
process advocated here, but be specific to the project you’re working
on. It should also include a timeline.
Research Audience Requirements
Research on the users of the product and the audience of the
documentation is one of the most important parts of any successful
product. Unfortunately, it is also one of the most often overlooked
aspects of any project. 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 project, you should investigate the
chance of conducting research. If you’re employed late in the product
life cycle, you should ask if user research has already been conducted
for the product itself. If it hasn’t, there’s a good chance you won’t
get support for audience research.
Audience research should seek to identify:
• user goals (what the user hopes to achieve with the product)
• user expectations of the doco (Manuals? Online help? Tutorials?, usability requirements, localisation requirements, etc.)
• user mental models (how they already see online help, what impressions they have of it, etc.)
• user tasks (how the user uses the product to achieve their goals)
• which users perform what tasks (user/task matrix)
• how long have users been doing these tasks?
• which tasks are one-off and which are repeated?
• did they ever do them differently?
• do they do a variety of tasks, or just a few?
• do they hate doing it? (is it tedious, repetitive?)
• do they find it difficult?
• which tasks are considered essential?
• are they normally under pressure when they do the task?
• are there other distractions (environmental, social, etc.)?
Some research methods to consider are:
• Observation of users doing their work in their work environment
• Focus groups and interviews with users
• Questionnaires
TIP: For further details on these methods, take a look at Managing Your
Documentation Projects by Hackos (1994), User and Task Analysis for
Interface Design by Hackos & Redish (1998), Social Marketing: New
Imperative for Public Health by Manoff (1985), Designing Qualitative
Research 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 continued… See part 2 of this article
(http://www.divinewrite.com/docoprocess2.htm) for information on
preparing your specifications.
