344 Part V: Closing Your Software Project Keeping (Adelphia web hosting)
344 Part V: Closing Your Software Project Keeping in mind that the end user is trying to successfully complete a specific task (whether that is generating a report about drinking water in the Amazon, formatting a disk while making giggling squeals, or something else that your software does), you need to focus on walking those users through that process. Here are some basic steps to follow when it comes to documenting operational transfer: 1. Start with the assumption that users have never used your software before. They are not familiar with your train of thought, and do not know how to do the task that they realize they need to do. Good documentation starts with logical programmers who create programs that allow users to perform tasks using a variety of simple, uniform methods. If you ve had good programmers working on your project and good quality assurance and testing, you already know where things are working and where things may require extra explanation. You also know which scenarios are most likely and which scenarios are least likely (you can guess that someone won t be trying to use the spell checker in software meant to record complex statistical data) so that you can focus on the areas that users are most likely to need help in. 2. Walk users through a very quick, common operation from start to finish. Don t go into any options or special features. Walk through the most basic operation imaginable and document each step. Don t make too many assumptions about the level of technological abilities of users. We hope you figured out the users abilities when you talked with the client and set up the product scope. But just because a program performs a simple task doesn t mean that the user is technologically unsophisticated and vice-versa. Maybe a piece of software does something pretty advanced. That doesn t mean that the user has the same skills as your programmers. 3. Discuss how someone may need to deviate from that basic operation if users need to do other things. Explain why someone would want to read from another file, format the output a specific way, or whatever else your software can do. 4. Begin walking through the operations again. This time, incorporate the option(s) that will make the changes. Again, assume the reader has no experience with your software and was not part of the team that created it. You don t want to talk down to users, but you do want to avoid racing through the material as if you were talking to a new developer joining the team.
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