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Subject:Estimating time to author software help manual From:"Jennifer C. Bennett" <fritillary -at- gmail -dot- com> To:<techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Tue, 1 Aug 2006 14:59:34 -0500
Hello,
I've been researching ways to estimate the time it will take to write a
software user manual. I thought I'd ask this question here on TECHWR_L to
see what others have done to estimate time. What kind of questions should I
ask to help me make an estimate? If I were to ask for screenshots of each
screen, menu and toolbar, how could I use this information to come up with a
reasonable estimate? I figure this information might give me an idea of the
complexity of the application, but I don't know how I would translate that
to a ballpark figure of hours it would take to write the documentation and
create graphics.
I asked the person I may be working with how long they think the user manual
will be and they said they figured it would be 70-80% of a competitor's user
manual. I did the calculation and 80% came out to 105 pages.
I will be using Word, which I am very familiar with. I will also be using
Snag-It 8 to create detailed graphics - screenshots edited to show small
sections of the screen with callouts, rather than just putting in one
screenshot of the screen where the text is too tiny to read. I love making
these; they seem to have been much more helpful to users that the
full-screen screenshots I used to make, but they are time-consuming to
create.
I look forward to reading how others have solved the estimating issue.
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