network or application to do their job Self-paced tutorials teach staff how to use a system, program, network or application to do their job. These may be online or paper-based tutorials. Brochures outline what a computer application does The purpose of user documentation What is the documentation going to be used for? This is the first question to ask before starting to create any user documentation. When you are satisfied that you have an answer, you can then decide what type of documentation you are going to produce. Reflect Think about documentation you have used and recall why you needed to refer to it. What was the main purpose of the documentation? What did it enable you to do? These are some examples of user documentation and their purpose. Examples Purpose A project specification, training manual, user guide, to learn how to use a tutorials or help that provides step by step guidance in piece of software how to use the software. A training manual, quick reference guide or user to refer to a specific guide that provides detailed commands and feature of a piece of specifications of a software package to assist with software troubleshooting problems. Once you have decided what the purpose of your documentation is and what type of documentation you are going to produce, you can look at the needs of the potential users of the documentation. Activity 1.3: Types of user documentation Scenario: An IT project is underway to develop a new application for the delivery of banking services. You are the technical writer and the bank initially does not want any online documentation List the types of user documentation you could possibly be asked to produce
network or application to do their job Self-paced tutorials teach staff how to use a system, program, network or application to do their job. These may be online or paper-based tutorials. Brochures outline what a computer application does The purpose of user documentation What is the documentation going to be used for? This is the first question to ask before starting to create any user documentation. When you are satisfied that you have an answer, you can then decide what type of documentation you are going to produce. Reflect Think about documentation you have used and recall why you needed to refer to it. What was the main purpose of the documentation? What did it enable you to do? These are some examples of user documentation and their purpose. Examples Purpose A project specification, training manual, user guide, tutorials or help that provides step by step guidance in how to use the software. to learn how to use a piece of software A training manual, quick reference guide or user guide that provides detailed commands and specifications of a software package to assist with troubleshooting problems. to refer to a specific feature of a piece of software Once you have decided what the purpose of your documentation is and what type of documentation you are going to produce, you can look at the needs of the potential users of the documentation. Activity 1.3: Types of user documentation Scenario: An IT project is underway to develop a new application for the delivery of banking services. You are the technical writer and the bank initially does not want any online documentation List the types of user documentation you could possibly be asked to produce