Re: System Documentation Metric

Subject: Re: System Documentation Metric
From: "Sharon Burton-Hardin" <sharonburton -at- earthlink -dot- net>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Wed, 1 Nov 2000 07:18:56 -0800

Beats me. I have been doing this for about 10 years. I have writers working
for me who have been doing this for about 20 years. Beats them too.

How many tasks are there? What are the tasks that 80-90% of your users are
going to need to know. Depending on the product, takes about 2 pages to tell
each one, including the explanation of why they do it.

You can have a task that takes the user across 5 screens. Some tasks take
one screen. Who knows how many pages per screen? Since users don't use
products that way, it is a non-information metric that looks like
information.

Tasks. Figure out those.

sharon

Sharon Burton-Hardin
Anthrobytes Consulting
909-369-8590
www.anthrobytes.com
Vice-president, Programs of the Inland Empire chapter of the STC
www.iestc.org

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tristan Bishop" <claritydocs -at- earthlink -dot- net>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Sent: Tuesday, 31 October, 2000 9:16 PM
Subject: System Documentation Metric


| Hey Whirlers,
|
| In a task-based user manual for a new software system, how many pages of
| documentation do you typically write for each unique system screen? (In
| other words, I'm looking for a sample pages-per-screen metric)
|
| If no one has empirical data, I'd be interested in opinion, even if it's a
| very rough estimate.
|
| Thanks so much!
|



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