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

["Gene Kim-Eng" <techwr -at- genek -dot- com>]

Actually, I prefer to ask these questions about the product at development 
kick-off, and use the answers to develop the document plan and defne the 
document set.  If I don't ask until I'm starting to think about specific 
documents, I've missed several large steps in my preferred process.

If nobody can answer the questions at the earliest stages of development, I know 
I'm not going to have a pleasant experience.

I'm glad to hear your thought process produces documents that work.  You must 
not have written any of the ones on my "shelf of shame." :)

Gene Kim-Eng


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Keith Hood" <klhra -at- yahoo -dot- com>


Gene, when you think about what to put in a document, apparently you ask 
yourself the same set of questions no matter what the document type, but you 
formulate the answers differently for different types of documents. When I think 
about what to put in a document, I ask myself a different set of questions for 
each different type of document. The end result - a determination about what to 
put in the document - is the same. Six of one, eight minus two of the other. Big 
deal.

The main issue is to make the resulting documents serve the customers' needs. 
This is an art, not a science, and there is plenty of room for variance in the 
thinking about how things are done. The biggest question of all to ask about a 
technical document is, does it work? Even though I apparently think in a 
different manner, the employers for whom I have written answer that question 
with the word "Yes."

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