A technical document is one in which the technical writer tries to write the basic information describing a complex or easy software or application in much simpler words.
The main role of a well written document is to make the client who is lay man in most of the cases, understand the main functionality and basic specification of the product.
Outsourced product development companies make use of technical documentation process which involves various steps as per the life cycle followed during the development of the product. A Good technical document is presented in the following stages:
1) Information gathering - project specifications and analysis
2) Prototype –set of guidelines and writing conventions to be followed or any previous such document to be followed
3) First Draft – writing the content on all the topics of the project
4) Second draft – After review of the first draft changes are made
5) Final/Standard Draft – at this stage minor changes are made after the second draft review and the draft is ready to be delivered
A technical documentation process is considered as one of the most time consuming process by various software companies as it requires a lot of man power and planning.
A well delivered technical document, at the end of the day, requires a great planning and understanding of the whole project.
Few tips followed by software development companies for an effective technical documentation:
1) Talk to your development department and get all the queries solved regarding the content and the technology used during the project.
2) Project the table of contents and structure the content so that it's easy for the valued users to navigate to different areas of the document.
3) Thoroughly spell check and use the right grammar; don't over use words as that can kill the authenticity of your content.
4) Use proper formatting and your content should be well organized.
5) Use sensible words to describe the content; it will make the user/client better understand the content of the document.
6) Always follow top down approach to write the document concepts.
7) Get a copy of well written software documentation template and then one can just stuff in the content in that as per the requirement.
8) Make your content well suited to the topic and use tables wherever necessary to highlight the difference between various scenarios.
9) Avoid redundancy in the document; try to club the sentences and if that is not possible either change the context or delete the repeating line.
10) Keep your document simple and clear; it should be understandable to the client.
11) Always try and mention the sources of the authorities and references of the sources.
12) Last but the not the least, proof-read your document again and ask others or your peers to review it until it is ideal to be submitted.
These tips if followed will definitely impress the client and lead to achieve client satisfaction.
Author Resource:
Kevin James is the author of this article. He has been demonstrating his writing skills by writing the articles for BlackBerry Application Development like Q3 technologies from last two years. He also has a keen interest in writing stuff for mobile application development related firms.
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