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"Industry standard" for software user documentation?
Subject:"Industry standard" for software user documentation? From:mandalynw -at- gmail -dot- com To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Fri, 23 Sep 2005 14:42:40 -0600
Hello techwr-lers,
I write user documentation for software. In the past two days, two
different co-workers have asked me if I use any kind of "industry
standard" format for our user documentation. One of them mentioned IEEE. I
haven't been asked to comply with any particular standards at this
company, but their questions made me wonder... Am I behind the times? Are
there technical documentation standards out there that are considered
"industry standards" for software *in general* that I'm just not aware of?
Their questions left me feeling a little puzzled. It would be different if
the company claimed to be ISO9000/whatever compliant, but that is not the
case.
And a secondary question... Is there any significant advantage to choosing
and following a standard such as IEEE for user documentation? Has anyone
adopted a standard like this of their own volition and had great success
with it? Or would voluntarily adopting a standard like this just add a
bunch of overhead?
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