Re: Doc Design and Convention - to address Gene's take on

[Chris Despopoulos <despopoulos_chriss -at- yahoo -dot- com>]

Janice Says:
The features that the product provides are not always
the features that need to be emphasized in the documentation
for the presumed user. For example, I've seen features
included in software products because the designers
thought they were cool or were jazzed because they had
figured out a way to implement them, but they weren't
necessarily features that actual purchasers of the product
either wanted or really needed.
***************************************

Actually, I'm surprised to hear that.  I find that for the last 5 years or more nobody has been willing to spend money on this type of implementation.  Maybe I'm working in a bell-jar, but I don't think so.  The designs I've been in on have really sought to focus on only the necessary stuff before implementation begins.  To the degree that this succeeds, you can count on the feature set to require a fairly even level of coverage, and you can bet that there's some form of use case analysis.  The groovy-for-the-fun-of-it features are generally commented out, and waiting for the next design cycle.  It's just to expensive to implement and support this stuff, and management knows it.



      
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