From Open Sustainability
Activity: User Support & Operational Procedure Guides
Objective
The User Support & Operational Procedure Guides activity produces final documentation for users and operations personnel. It completes the work begun during the design phase of help activities. In order to ensure that quality online help and guidelines are delivered it is often worth scheduling an early release of the content. This allows for a review period (in parallel with developer usage of the system and documentation) to refine the help and have a subsequent release.
Major Deliverables
- Online help
- User guides and Procedures
Tasks
Develop User Support Documentation
Objective:
User documentation may be viewed as the final expression of business processes —a statement of what can be done with the system, and how the user would do it. Unfortunately, simply editing the use case descriptions will not lead to good documentation. This is because user documentation is often used by people who have a problem and are searching for answers. So, for example, long text descriptions of procedures are often inappropriate, because they cannot easily be searched for answers to specific problems. On the other hand, if there is to be an extensive training program for new users, documentation organized into narrative form will help in the design of the classes. Therefore, In designing these documents, the primary consideration must be the nature of the audience, and when and how they will use the documents.
Input:
- User Procedure Manual Outline
- Help and Training Styles
- System Development
Output:
Develop Operations Support Guides
Objective:
The approach concerning user documentation is also applicable for the completion of Operations Documentation. However, it is more acceptable to write operations manuals in terms of the use case descriptions, since training for operations personnel is more controllable than for users. Generally, operations manuals will be complemented by the documentation of the software product. It is beneficial to try and auto-generate as much of this documentation as possible.
Input:
- Operations Procedure Outline
- Solution Design and Development Artefacts
Output
- Operations Procedure Manual
Develop Desk Procedures
Objective:
These manuals describe the performance of business functions in all of their aspects, many of which will not involve interaction with the software. These manuals are typically produced by client personnel.
Input:
- Desk Procedures Manual Outline
- Solution Design and Development Artefacts
Output:
Develop Help and Tutorial Guides
Objective:
Online help is developed in this task. It is sometimes useful to plan an entire early implementation cycle around the addition of help to the system. This allows you to schedule an extra release cycle, and to improve the quality of this aspect of the interface.
It is worth noting that hurriedly developed help screens are more irritating to users than no help at all.
Input:
- Operations Procedure Outline
- Online Help Design
- Solution Design and Development Artefacts
Output:
Core Supporting Assets
Yellow Flags
- Manuals are defined in a fashion that are prone to quickly becoming outdated with software changes
- Users do not play a role in reviewing and creating training content
Key Resource Requirements
