Documentation Strategy

Master Documentation Plan

File:Master Documentation Plan.pdf

What is Documentation

Documentation involves the saving of information for access by particular entities at a later time.

Documentation Strategy Summary

A documenter should try to tell a compelling, informative story that draws in the reader and efficiently communicates the desired information. Emphasis on content.

Well-connected stories are extremely effective to ease the learning curve for new readers through multiple concepts and relationships. Emphasis on continuity.

Experienced users often want to reference a particular section of a long story because they already know about or do not have the immediate time to go through the whole thing. Emphasis on navigability.

Efficiency requires that the documenter find it easy to create the documentation in the first place. Emphasis on ease of documentation.

In addition, the documentation should be easy to edit where applicable. Emphasis on ease of revision.

How can we achieve optimized content, continuity, navigability, ease of documentation, and ease of revision?

Good content conveys the most appropriate form of information, whether that be text, images, videos, sounds, etc.

Good continuity requires a clear order of steps and links to more specific information for topics where applicable.

Good navigability requires an index, preferably with short descriptions to guide the user to the story they would like to access.

Ease of documentation requires effective software and hardware to reorganize and optimize content rapidly.

Ease of revision requires integrated software and hardware that allows editors to change and reorganize parts of content rapidly.