Task: Develop User Documentation |  |
User documentation must be developed and maintained for each Release so that the product's end users will know how to operate the system effectively.
Disciplines: Deployment
Purpose
The purpose of this task is to provide useful information to end users of the product being released into production.
Relationships
Roles | Primary Performer: Technical Writer | Additional Performers:
Inputs | Mandatory: None | Optional: Product Documentation
Outputs | User Documentation
Main Description
User documentation might include all or parts of user manuals (electronic or paper-based), tutorials, frequently asked questions (FAQs), on-line Help Files, installation instructions, operational procedures, etc. User documentation often is used as the basis for training materials - if the documentation is of poor quality, the training materials might not be any better. Without good user documentation, a system might be well developed by a development team but might not meet the End User's expectations because they will not be able operate the application effectively.
Steps
Determine user documentation contents
%EOL% User documentation often consists of a wide variety of content such as:%EOL% %EOL% %EOL% %EOL% User manuals (electronic or paper-based)%EOL% %EOL% %EOL% Tutorials%EOL% %EOL% %EOL% Frequently asked questions (FAQs)%EOL% %EOL% %EOL% On-line Help Files%EOL% %EOL% %EOL% Installation and configuration instructions%EOL% %EOL% %EOL% Operational procedures (or job aids)%EOL% %EOL% %EOL% %EOL% For your product and for this release, determine which of these types of user documentation your team will develop and%EOL% deliver.%EOL%
Leverage product documentation
Re-use whatever material you can from the product documentation that your team has created. If adequate time and attention was given to product documentation, you should be able to leverage a significant amount of it to develop the user documentation. Because only features (and possibly some nonfunctional requirements) were documented for the product, only that amount can be leveraged. However, it often provides a nice framework for the user documentation.
Leverage other materials
Other materials developed in the course of the Release might provide excellent input into the user documentation such as: User Stories Test Cases Storyboards Test Scenarios Architecture Notebook Previously developed training materials Each of these may contain content that you do not need to re-create. Use your imagination to find other source materials that can help your team document the system for end users.
Write user documentation content
Based on the previous steps, write the user documentation. One way to do this is to assign sections of the document (described in the step "Determine User Documentation Contents" above) to Development team members as Sprint/Iteration Tasks in the Release Sprint/Iteration.
Perform quality review
As the user documentation is integrated, plan and conduct a quality review during the Release Sprint/Iteration to ensure that the documentation is of sufficient quantity and quality. Update and improve the user documentation based on the results of the quality review.
Deliver user documentation
Before or at the end of a release, deliver the completed user documentation to the deployment manager. Ensure that the program has a plan for communicating the user documentation to end users.
This program and the accompanying materials are made available under the Eclipse Public License V1.0, which accompanies this distribution. EPF Copyright.