Chapter Summary

Creating technical documents is a cooperative effort, with each team member contributing his or her expertise. This expertise generally falls into one of three categories: technology, user application, and documentation development. Documentation teams must determine the type of user documentation needed for a specific product, whether for marketing or evaluation materials, user manuals, help programs, tutorials, or training. Universal task architecture should be used to examine the various functions of a given technology to determine the exact information needed to enable users to properly operate it. Prior to writing user documentation, create an outline to ensure that all the capabilities of the technology and the needs of the user are being addressed. Once an outline has been created, it is helpful to use the storyboard process, which involves posting specifications, or specs, onto a wall so that the documentation team can see how the information interrelates and offer feedback. This provides the documentation team an opportunity to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the user documentation's design.

Online Links

Tips for Team Work and Team Writing (Page 82)
www.urban.uiuc.edu/courses/Varkki/teamwork/teams.html

Trace Research and Development Center (Page 89)
http://trace.wisc.edu?world/doc_access

Search Engine Web sites (Page 97)
www.altavista.com
www.askjeeves.com
www.google.com
www.webcrawler.com

eFlashcards

Sharpen your knowledge of chapter terms and definitions with eFlashcards or an interactive crossword puzzle.

Practice Tests

Test your understanding of the chapter material with a self-scoring Practice Test.

Some activities require Flash 6.0 Player. If you do not have this application, you may download it now.

Back to Top