Has anyone ever written the user guide before the product was developed (coded)?

[Vanessa ScottSabic <vanessascottsabic -at- nanometrics -dot- ca>]

We had an interesting conversation with our manager today and since we are
about to begin work on a new product the idea was proposed that we try to
write the user guide before the product is coded so that the developers
design what we have documented instead of us documenting what they have
designed. Of course, this does not mean that we dictate the design and
functionality of the product but the idea is that we could be proactive
rather than reactive and also help the developers.

Our first step was to research this idea and see what
information/experiences we could find. I have done some preliminary research
and I did not find much at all about this.

Has anyone tried anything like this? Would anyone be willing to share your
experiences/tips? Can anyone point me to some resources?

Thanks!

Vanessa
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