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How to Compare Different Offers
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The cheapest offer rarely is the one with the best cost/benefit ratio. Do not ignore the following aspects when comparing different quotations for technical documentation:
Spectrum of the solution
| ▪ | Does the offer include a prior documentation plan? Although it might initially seem faster to just start writing "intuitively", a clear concept will save a lot of time and money in the long run. |
| ▪ | Will translatability and future documentation maintenance (updates) be addressed? |
| ▪ | Will the document structure be modular, so that you have the option to re-use certain parts of the documents within other documents or media in the future? |
Extra tasks
| ▪ | Does the offer include the creation of templates? Even if you already have some templates these templates will often have to be complemented or adapted. Has this been accounted for? |
| ▪ | Does the offer include the creation of graphics and screenshots, or do you have to supply them? |
| ▪ | Does the offer plan for at least one review cycle, and does it include the time it will take to make some changes to the documents after the review? |
| ▪ | Does the offer include the creation of an index? |
| ▪ | If you need printed manuals: Does the offer include optimization of the print layout (pagination, hyphenation, etc.)? |
Dependence
| ▪ | Will you only get the final documents (a pdf file for example) or will you also get all source documents (a Microsoft Word file for example) and templates, including the required rights to use these templates also in the future? This is an important point in case you decide to change your documentation service provider one day, or if you want to produce your documentation in-house. |
| ▪ | Which authoring tools will be used? Are these tools freely available on the market or does a custom tool force you to commit yourself to a specific contractor. Especially if you plan for single source publishing, make sure that you get the rights to use all customized converters as well. |
Person in charge
| ▪ | Also you should agree upon who will edit the project and what qualification and experience this person has. Make sure that the same person will be available for future projects as well. Every change of staff would require additional time, both on the contractor's side and for you, and also involves the risk of unstable quality. |
| ▪ | If the person assigned to your project is a trainee, do not hesitate to ask for a considerable discount. |
Who benefits?
And finally the key question: Does the bidder aim to optimize his profit or your benefit?
See also
Cost
How to Assess Documentation Quality
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Software user assistance and documentation
since 1989
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Manuals and online help generated cost-effectively from one common text base
since 1995 |
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Numerous publications and presentations, e.g. on:
information design,
user guidance and navigation,
embedded user assistance,
single source publishing,
authoring tools
technical documentation process improvement
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| Winner of the Golden Disc from the German computer magazine CHIP |
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| Member of tekom, the German professional organization for Technical Communication and Information Development |
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