System documentation metric: pages per screen?

["Hart, Geoff" <Geoff-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>]

Tristan Bishop wonders <<In a task-based user manual for a new software
system, how many pages of documentation do you typically write for each
unique system screen?  (In other words, I'm looking for a sample
pages-per-screen metric)>>

Can't be done. A screen with a single field for the user to fill in will
obviously require fewer pages of documentation than a screen with dozens of
fields. You can't even come up with a good metric for pages per field, since
the "Type your family name here" field isn't going to require any
documentation, whereas describing the "provide your telephone number" field
could get quite long if you need to include the wide variety of formats for
international phone numbers.

I think you need to refine your question better: what are you actually
trying to measure, and why? (Sounds like you're trying to budget
worker-hours or printing costs, but I don't want to make assumptions here.)

--Geoff Hart, FERIC, Pointe-Claire, Quebec
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca

"When ideas fail, words* come in very handy."--Goethe
* In this context, perhaps we should say "productivity metrics". <g>

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