It also should represent the dependencies between different parts of the system. Their documentation informs developers how to effectively use and connect to the required APIs. API documentation is a deliverable produced by technical writers as tutorials and guides. This type of documentation should also contain the list of all available APIs with specs for each one.
As the name suggests, user documentation is created for product users. However, their categories may also differ. So, you should structure user documentation according to the different user tasks and different levels of their experience.
Generally, user documentation is aimed at two large categories:. The documentation created for end-users should explain in the simplest way possible how the software can help solve their problems. Such user instructions can be provided in the printed form, online, or offline on a device.
Here are the main types of the user documents:. The complete manual includes exhaustive information and instructions on how to install and operate the product. It lists the hardware and software requirements, detailed description of the features and full guidelines on how to get the most out of them, example inputs and outputs, possible tips and tricks, etc.
The troubleshooting guide gives end-users information on how to find and resolve possible issues that might arise when using the product. For a detailed overview, check our article dedicated to user documentation. Some parts of user documentation, such as tutorials and onboarding, in many large customer-based products are replaced with onboarding training.
Nevertheless, there are still complex systems remaining that require documented user guides. User documentation requires technical writers to be more imaginative. Online end-user documentation may include the following sections:. Written in plain language with visual materials and step-by-step instructions included, user guides can become a powerful marketing tool and increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. Besides, to provide the best service for end-users, you should collect your customer feedback continuously.
The wiki system is one of the more useful practices. It helps to maintain the existing documentation. You can create your wiki pages using a wiki markup language and HTML code. Usually, administration docs cover installation and updates that help a system administrator with product maintenance. Here are standard system administrators documents:. Process documentation covers all activities surrounding product development.
The value of keeping process documentation is to make development more organized and well-planned. This branch of documentation requires some planning and paperwork both before the project starts and during the development. Here are common types of process documentation:. Plans, estimates, and schedules. These documents are usually created before the project starts and can be altered as the product evolves.
Reports and metrics. Reports reflect how time and human resources were used during development. They can be generated on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. Consult our article on agile delivery metrics to learn more about process documents such as velocity chats, sprint burndown charts, and release burndown charts.
Working papers. The majority of process documents are specific to the particular moment or phase of the process. As a result, these documents quickly become outdated and obsolete. But they still should be kept as part of development because they may become useful in implementing similar tasks or maintenance in the future.
Also, process documentation helps to make the whole development more transparent and easier to manage. The main goal of process documentation is to reduce the amount of system documentation. In order to achieve this, write the minimal documentation plan. List the key contacts, release dates, and your expectations with assumptions.
Product roadmaps are used in Agile software development to document vision, strategy, and overall goals of the project. Roadmaps are used as process documents to keep the course of development in sync with initial goals. Depending on the type of product roadmap, it can express high-level objectives, prioritization of tasks, the sprint timeline, or low-level details.
A strategic roadmap is a high-level strategic document, that contains overall information on the project. Strategic roadmaps usually state a vision and long-term goals. In the case of agile product development, a roadmap can be arranged in themes. Themes are multiple tasks that a team must complete and are somehow connected. Grouping the information around the themes makes a roadmap highly flexible and updatable, which is a great fit for sprint-based development.
The best advice concerning strategic roadmapping is to include only important information. Otherwise, you risk turning your roadmap into a clumsy scheme, difficult to both understand and maintain. Source: productplan. A technology roadmap or IT roadmap is a low-level document that describes technical requirements and the means of technology implementation.
IT roadmaps are quite detailed. They contain the information on each deliverable, explaining the reason for such a decision. Source: hutwork.
A release plan is used to set strict time limits for releases. A release plan should focus on the actual deadlines without specifying release details. It is highly recommended to use roadmap specific tools to create your own roadmaps.
Online tools like Roadmunk provide various templates for product roadmaps, allow quick editing, and provide easy sharing across all team members. Keep in mind, that a roadmap, depending on its type, can be a product document that states requirements. It also describes the process and guides your team through development. There are countless collaborative tools for software development teams. Those can help to state requirements, share information, and document features and processes:.
As software documentation is easier to be used on the web, it has to be created in a proper format. Markup is used on GitHub and Reddit, and basically everywhere for web-based documentation. So, here are some Markdown editors that can be useful for creating documents for your project:. Most roadmapping tools provide templates for different roadmaps to let you start working with this document right away.
Basically, all the tools offer free trials and paid plans with differences in templates, number of roadmaps, and people you can share them with. The most popular tools for user experience design are prototyping tools that help create sketches, mock-ups, wireframes, and interactive prototypes:. The process of creating API documentation is most often automated.
Programmers or tech writers may write the documentation manually or use API documentation generators:. Professional tech writers often use specialized software for creating high-quality tech documentation. Such tools are called content management systems , or CMSs, and allow for easier building, organizing, and managing various documentation.
A CMS can operate different file formats, import and store content, and let multiple users contribute to content development. Some popular CMSs include:. Many of the tools described in the previous section provide a variety of templates for creating tech documentation. However, if your team is still struggling to find a qualitative template for some type of software documentation, here are more specialized sources to check out.
The following sources provide a wide variety of templates related to software development and project management:. Downloadable templates might be harder to manage and collaborate on, but can still get you started quickly.
Here are some sources where you can find a number of roadmap templates:. Software design documents are sometimes also called product or technical specifications. You can adjust one of these templates to fit your needs:. Today, as more businesses prefer to migrate to the cloud, there are some well-known trusted providers that offer training and architecture samples to facilitate operating in their environments:.
There are several common practices that can be applied to all the major types of documentation we discussed above. You should find a balance between no documentation and excessive documentation. Poor documentation causes many errors and reduces efficiency in every phase of software product development.
At the same time, there is no need to provide an abundance of documentation and to repeat information in several papers. Only the most necessary and relevant information should be documented. Try to keep your documentation simple and reader friendly. It has to be logically structured and easily searchable, so include the table of contents.
Avoid long blocks of text whenever possible and use visual content as it is easier to absorb information this way for most people. You also have to remember who the document is written for. If it is for end-users, it definitely has to be written in plain language so that the readers are able to understand it without consulting the tech dictionary. However, if it is for your team tech specialists, make sure you provide all the accuracy and details they need to stick to the development plan and build the needed design and features.
Use cross-links between documents, whether those are product pages or user guides. Proper navigation through your documentation is important to give the reader the right understanding of a subject. Such practice can be considered user-flow, but for your project documentation.
Documentation can be dedicated to internal or external usage. In the case of external documents, it is better to provide a clear explanation of every term, and its specific meaning in the project. Documentation should communicate ideas in clear language to set lingua franca between stakeholders, internal members, and users.
Proper maintenance is very important as documents that are outdated or inconsistent automatically lose their value. It is a good practice to establish some sort of maintenance and update schedule. You can either make it at regular intervals, i. Automated emails or release notes can help you follow the changes made by the development team. You can also use a version control tool to manage this process more efficiently.
It will let you track changes made, retain previous versions and drafts, and keep everyone aligned. The agile method is based on a collaborative approach to creating documentation. If you want to achieve efficiency, interview programmers and testers about the functionalities of the software. Then, after you have written some documentation, share it with your team and get feedback. To get more information try to comment, ask questions, and encourage others to share their thoughts and ideas.
Every team member can make a valuable contribution to the documents you produce. The person who generally does this job is called a technical writer. A tech writer with an engineering background can gather information from developers without requiring someone to explain in detail what is going on. He or she will be able to take part in regular meetings and discussions. The agile methodology encourages engineering teams to always focus on delivering value to their customers.
This key principle must also be considered in the process of producing software documentation. Good software documentation should be provided whether it is a software specifications document for programmers and testers or software manuals for end-users. Comprehensive software documentation is specific, concise, and relevant.
You should rather focus only on those documents that directly help achieve project objectives. Yes, I understand and agree to the Privacy Policy. You need to add documentation maintenance to your content.
Put also troubleshooting guide and workflow to speed up resolution time by reducing time to find out source of the problem. Thanks for the advice, Sudiro!
Hi all, as former software developer, software user documentation designer and now owning a Tech Communication company, I would suggest to include tools born to help the technical writer. We meet a lot of companies that start the user documentation journey just with editors.
Or with general-purpose tools. With those systems, you can build various publications starting from the same content. High reuse of information. And you can easily manage multilingual user documentation. A very well constructed and informative article. I would also suggest that aspects of third-party solutions that make up the entire system be fully documented so there is no doubt about what makes up the entire solution, An aspect that I think is not covered so well as just how you bring all this together integrated with your database schema details in an organised and structured manner so that there … Read more ».
Furthermore, a software can have lots of features.. Thank you very much for your attention, this article is very useful!! Hi Giulia, thanks for the question! Keeping this process organized requires guidelines, timeframe, and frameworks. In reply to your second comment, UX documentation would also cover functionality points including the required features. Estimates are created before the project starts and can be changed in the course of product development. But if a team is small, a project manager can write the documentation.
Also, you can hire a technical writer to complete this task. The value to the organization is the documentation.
From this documentation patents can be developed, contracts can be crafted. Basically, the intellectual property of the organization is in the documentation, not the software itself. While in the past you got your marching orders from an employer that worked with clients or was itself in the software business, now all those responsibilities that were once distributed between expert-testing, program management, etc. This is a far greater challenge than it appears.
You will get a very general idea of what the software is supposed to do, look like, and flow. At each stage, you must iterate your way closer to agreement. Having worked for years at companies that were themselves in the software business, where everyone on the team was from the same culture, spoke the same native language, worked in the same hallway, met each other daily, etc. Make no mistake: the challenge here is enormous.
So, when you take on a new project, before you even open Xcode or Visual Studio, you need to have clear and agreed-upon design goals. And these goals should be established in a specification document. If anything, the client will apologize for letting the imprecision slip through in the first place. We all want satisfied clients. We all want a friendly working relationship. And we all want the pride of a job well-done.
If the client still insists that you advance without such a document, you should accept the fact that you have an unworkable relationship and walk away.
At the very least, it should be a description of the desired application, criteria for completion, and milestones. Remember, you are sharing what is best described as a requirements and function document, not an implementation specification. And unless a specific implementation is a stated client objective, how you make it work is up to you. Most projects are applications, not libraries or frameworks.
But if you happen to have one of these as a deliverable, count yourself lucky because the user interface is far and away the most problematic component of your design document template , and almost always leads to misunderstandings.
Many clients will send you perfect illustrations created in a graphic editor by a graphic designer who is not a programmer. But the problem is: these illustrations say nothing about animations, control states e. Does it disappear when unusable? Before you start writing the code behind these illustrations, you should be able to answer all of those questions.
Specifically, you should know:. Screen dimensions are important too. There are as of writing three sizes of iPhone screens. Separate wireframes for 3. If your client supplies you with graphics, make sure that they are correctly sized with the proper aspect ratios; morphing any bitmap that has text or objects like circles will introduce distortions.
Generalize these ideas, and be as detailed and thorough as you can—because errors or misunderstandings here will mean rewriting code. Your specification template should layout clear milestones. If your client writes the functional and user interface design, you should subsequently agree on a set of milestones.
Sometimes these are billing thresholds as well, but at the very least they provide a clear metric toward completion. When possible, milestones should be approximately equal in duration. Of course, this template should be adjusted as-needed.
He approaches the document slightly differently, but shares a similar sentiment. What does the application do?
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