TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
But use cases (usually) are supposed to describe interactions between a human user and the system. If you change any labels on the UI, or if you change what type of control the user activates to perform a function, you'd have to at least edit the use cases to reflect the changes in the control arrangements. That would apply even if the functions remain the same.
--- On Fri, 10/30/09, Robert Lauriston <robert -at- lauriston -dot- com> wrote:
> From: Robert Lauriston <robert -at- lauriston -dot- com>
> Subject: Re: Doc Design and Conventions
> To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> Date: Friday, October 30, 2009, 11:28 AM
> A very high-level description. You
> could radically revise an
> application's UI, requiring a complete rewrite of the
> task-oriented
> portions of the documentation, but the use cases wouldn't
> change
> unless the functional requirements changed.
>
> On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 4:49 AM, Chris Despopoulos
> <despopoulos_chriss -at- yahoo -dot- com>
> wrote:
> > I think you're defining use cases differently than I
> do. To me a use
> > case is a high-level description of the goal and how
> to achieve it.
> > How do you see a use case?
> >
> > ------------
> > "What's the use case for feature X?"
> >
> > That's backwards.
> >
> > The user wants to reach the end point of the use case
> (that is,
> > achieve some sort of real-world goal) as efficiently
> as possible. To
> > that end, good documentation explains which parts of
> which features to
> > use in what order to get there.
> >
> > Only the people who write the software and doc needs
> to understand the
> > use cases for the features.
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> Are you looking for one documentation tool that does it
> all? Author,
> build, test, and publish your Help files with just one
> easy-to-use tool.
> Try the latest Doc-To-Help 2009 v3 risk-free for 30-days
> at:
>http://www.doctohelp.com/
>
> Help & Manual 5: The complete help authoring tool for
> individual
> authors and teams. Professional power, intuitive interface.
> Write
> once, publish to 8 formats. Multi-user authoring and
> version control! http://www.helpandmanual.com/
>
> ---
> You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as klhra -at- yahoo -dot- com -dot-
>
> To unsubscribe send a blank email to
> techwr-l-unsubscribe -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> or visit http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/options/techwr-l/klhra%40yahoo.com
>
>
> To subscribe, send a blank email to techwr-l-join -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
>
> Send administrative questions to admin -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-
> Visit
>http://www.techwr-l.com/ for more resources and info.
>
> Please move off-topic discussions to the Chat list, at:
>http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/listinfo/techwr-l-chat
>
>
Are you looking for one documentation tool that does it all?  Author,
build, test, and publish your Help files with just one easy-to-use tool.
Try the latest Doc-To-Help 2009 v3 risk-free for 30-days at: http://www.doctohelp.com/
Help & Manual 5: The complete help authoring tool for individual
authors and teams. Professional power, intuitive interface. Write
once, publish to 8 formats. Multi-user authoring and version control! http://www.helpandmanual.com/
---
You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- web -dot- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-