Role of Documentation

What is the role of documentation in development – any development?  Hardware, Software, Manufacturing, Communication – you name it.

What do you do when your child opens a birthday gift, lets say, a new board game for your family, called Great States. You haven’t seen in before. How do you play with your child? Have you ever looked at the instruction sheet that comes with such board games? You are driving your car. Suddenly notice a little orange thing flash in the dashboard. Have you ever searched for the manual in the glove compartment and found it was the tire air pressure monitor? How do you assemble that book shelf you ordered online from Costco? Do you intuitively know which piece of wood goes where? (Even with the drawing and instructions, we assembled our top shelf upside down and are living with it.)

OK – now you are on Amazon.com or on Schoology. Trying to purchase something or setting up your child’s account. You have no idea how to add the teacher as a coach on schoology. its late and you don't have time to call the teacher to ask how. Do you look for a little Help icon or a question mark and click to read what are you supposed to do here?

You just bought a new printer. You are no techie. You need to install the printer so you can print some of the recipes you found online. What do you do? Have you flipped through the instructions? or searched online for a specific model number and downloaded a PDF doc?

How do you think all these information are made available to you? Somewhere someone, called a technical writer, looks at these products, talks about these products, use these products and writes about them. So when you need to know what to do, the paper or the web page called ‘Help pages’ are there for you.

The role of documentation may be very little. But it is a tiny little piece in a bigger puzzle. Without the tiny little piece, the puzzle is not complete. The missing piece will create a visible tiny little hole, that may become a gaping gap when pieces all around it start to loosen up and fall.