Estimating context-sensitive help topics

Subject: Estimating context-sensitive help topics
From: Katharine Woods <kathw -at- FTP -dot- COM>
Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 13:39:39 +0000

Having been reading Joann Hackos' "Managing Your Documentation
Projects" (many thanks to all who recommended it - it's been well
worth it), I have noticed that she says that one help topic will
take 4 hours total work.

My question is, in your experience, does this apply to
context-sensitive help topics too? I am trying to provide reasonable
estimates for producing just the context-sensitive help topics as one
part of a larger project.

Background:
I want the context-sensitive help topics to provide more information
than "Enter the field name in the Field Name field", but not contain
any procedural information or detailed background information. There
will also be no links from the context sensitive topics back into the
main set of help topics. The subject is network communications
software.

If you send me your comments directly, I will summarise them to the
Katharine Woods
kathw -at- sol -dot- ftp -dot- com
Senior Technical Writer
FTP Software Limited
list.

TIA.

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