RE: Documentation estimates

["Sarah Bouchier" <Sarah -dot- Bouchier -at- exony -dot- com>]

>I do remember that many years ago there was an article in the STC
Journal
>suggesting that as a _rough_ average, the figure of 7 pages per day
could
>be
>expected from a good tech writer.

I once spent an entire day writing a paragraph.

I believe the breakdown of my time (it was about five years ago) went
something along the lines of:

1 hour: locating developer-written documentation, specs, source code etc
1 hour: attempting to understand what little information there was in
order to get an understanding of what questions to ask 
1 hour: locating the appropriate SME to ask sensible questions of
1 hour: meeting with SME
2 hours: working out how to turn a page of scribbled notes with arrows
pointing at other notes into a linear format
1 hour: writing said linear format, editing to make absolutely clear
30 mins: clearing up a few minor factual points

That paragrah was a work of art.

Of course, only an hour of that was technically +writing+.

Ultimately, how fast you can produce a piece of documentation depends on
the availability of SMEs and other information sources, the complexity
of the subject, whether diagrams are required (a picture may be worth
1000 words, but in my experience it takes longer to draw that picture
than to write those words!), and only then how fast you can actually
write.

S.
----------------------------------------- 
Sarah Bouchier 
Technical Author 

exony 
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