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How far away from your facilities may a documentation service provider be located? Does it make sense to charge a contractor with the task of designing or creating software documentation such as user manuals, online help files, screencasts, demos or tutorials, if this contractor is not based within your local area?
Where is the best place to write technical documentation? Does your contractor have to work on-site? Should the office of your documentation service provider be located closely to your own office, or doesn’t this really matter?
On the one hand, working at your facilities makes it easy to test-drive your product and to resolve questions. On the other hand, you also have to provide a suitable workplace and testing equipment, and you must schedule some extra time to answer questions. Another problem often is the fact that there are only a few working prototypes available of a new product. So access to these prototypes is limited.
For this reason, the most efficient approach usually is to schedule dedicated meetings when your contractor visits you to work with your product and to get questions answered. To prepare these meetings, your contractor should also use written materials (if available), such as spec sheets, notes from developers, presentations, sales brochures, etc. This will minimize the time that it takes your experts to answer questions.
The bulk of work can then be done offsite at the contractor’s office.
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If your product is software, your documentation service provider can often use a suitable test version or remote access to do most of the testing. Meetings at your facilities can then focus on expert interviews. Most questions can even be answered by phone or by email.
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The bottom line is:
| ▪ | The more investigation has to be done with the product, the nearer the documentation service provider should be located to the manufacturer. However, in most cases you won’t need more than a few well-prepared sessions. |
| ▪ | With software user assistance projects, distance is usually no problem at all. |
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Keywords relating to this page: technical documentation - software documentation - user documentation - user assistance - manual - user manual - online help - service provider - documentation service provider - contractor - agency - office - distance - location - remote - off-site - on-site.
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