5 types of documentations in software engineering

A roadmap is another piece of documentation in which a software project may be formalized. A product roadmap captures long-term and short-term goals, priorities, deliverables, dependencies and actions to be taken by developers. On the top of that, a product owner may use it to envision a release of future functionality of the software. Technology Stack. A t echnology stack is one of the software engineering documents that constitutes a list of technologies software products and programming languages which are to be used to develop a digital product.

As a rule of thumb, technology stack is created along with a vision statement, an initial assessment document and a product roadmap, since technology tools needed for a project may influence its budget significantly. SRS is an in-depth and comprehensive description of software to be developed. As mentioned, the level of formality of this documents depends on the chosen methodology i. However, in general, SRS should capture the functional and non-functional system, technical requirements of a product, constraints, assumptions and acceptance criteria.

In other words, this piece of software engineer documentation shows how a software product will interact with the hardware, users and other programs. SRS is often written in a form of a set of use cases. A use case is a description of actions to be taken by a person usually referred to as an actor to achieve particular goals using a digital product.

For example:. In addition, some elements of the functionality may be described in separate user stories.

They are written from a perspective of an end-user and is generally considered as a simplified version of a specific requirement. SRS is undoubtedly the most important document in each development project. It comprehensively formalizes the wishes of a product owner, simplifies communication among members of a development team and minimizes time and money required to develop a final product. Wireframes and UX Roadmap. A wireframe is a part of design documentation in software engineering.

A wireframe of a typical page usually does not include images and many colors if any at all but shows logos, body content, search fields, share buttons etc. Wireframes themselves do not capture the interactions between different pages. To demonstrate what happens if a user pushes a specific button, a UX roadmap is designed. A UX Roadmap is basically all wireframes put together with arrows or other graphical elements depicting what an app will do i. Not noting all parts of the code.

You or your developers might think they will remember everything but if too much time passes they may forget the classes, functions, features, and architecture they had designed. Technical Documentation 2: Product Documentation Product documentation describes all the features of the item. Technical Documentation 3: Troubleshooting Documentation Of course, you do not want to believe something can go wrong with your product.

Commonly, you name these articles troubleshooting guide. Common Mistakes Believing everything is included in your product documentation, you probably have forgotten something or not went into enough detail. Doing so your user can determine the best fix for themselves.

Forgetting to include all troubleshooting steps. Confusing a Knowledge-base with a troubleshooting guide, it is a different type of document. Technical Documentation 4: Knowledge-base Like the troubleshooting document, a knowledge-base is an area where users can find common issues and how to fix them.

Common Mistakes Providing multiple problems and fixes in the same location. Each should have its own Giving numerous fixes without telling which option is the best. Not providing a way to search for the appropriate article. Recommending a fix for a problem no one is having Knowledge-bases are ever-evolving.

No matter how clear and simple you think your software is to use, you'll need to provide some types of user documentation. If there's no documentation, potential users may give up on your programs and hunt for software that comes with how-to instructions. The different types of program documentation all serve the same purpose: to make it easier for users to understand the program and use it to get something done. This includes coworkers as well as customers. If your company employs proprietary software, providing new employees with different types of user documentation speeds up their onboarding.

Good developers understand the types of documentation and their importance and that the importance and role varies from type to type. You may be writing the documentation solo, but it's common to write it as a joint effort. Project documentation, for instance, may have contributions from project managers, engineers and designers.

If you have a team working on the material, the simplest way to coordinate contributions is with an online template to which everyone can add. There are several types of user documentation you may want to incorporate into your user guide to make it more helpful:.

If you're a one-person shop, you may have to write your own documentation. At larger firms, there's often a technical writing department that works with the software teams to develop documentation.

Some firms prefer outsourcing the writing so employees can focus on writing code instead. No matter the type of program documentation, you want it to be clear, readable and helpful. There are several things to keep in mind:. In the internet era, you don't have to stop with a ReadMe file. You can also provide added types of program documentation on your website. Even if project managers don't write the documentation, they need to oversee it.

Errors in documentation can lead to users making mistakes or to the finished documents not matching up with the vision of the stakeholders. Some managers choose to draw up detailed documentation before forging ahead with the project. This can be effective if the product doesn't change much from conception to final form.

If there are changes, however, the team will have to work to keep the documentation updated. The alternative approach is to produce documentation just in time. Work on the software and then document what you've done when that's what you need to advance to the next stage.

Many of the tools described in the previous section provide a variety of templates for creating tech documentation. However, if your team is still struggling to find a qualitative template for some type of software documentation, here are more specialized sources to check out. The following sources provide a wide variety of templates related to software development and project management:.

Downloadable templates might be harder to manage and collaborate on, but can still get you started quickly. Here are some sources where you can find a number of roadmap templates:.

Software design documents are sometimes also called product or technical specifications. You can adjust one of these templates to fit your needs:. Today, as more businesses prefer to migrate to the cloud, there are some well-known trusted providers that offer training and architecture samples to facilitate operating in their environments:.

There are several common practices that can be applied to all the major types of documentation we discussed above. You should find a balance between no documentation and excessive documentation. Poor documentation causes many errors and reduces efficiency in every phase of software product development.

At the same time, there is no need to provide an abundance of documentation and to repeat information in several papers. Only the most necessary and relevant information should be documented. Try to keep your documentation simple and reader friendly. It has to be logically structured and easily searchable, so include the table of contents. Avoid long blocks of text whenever possible and use visual content as it is easier to absorb information this way for most people.

You also have to remember who the document is written for. If it is for end-users, it definitely has to be written in plain language so that the readers are able to understand it without consulting the tech dictionary.

However, if it is for your team tech specialists, make sure you provide all the accuracy and details they need to stick to the development plan and build the needed design and features. Use cross-links between documents, whether those are product pages or user guides. Proper navigation through your documentation is important to give the reader the right understanding of a subject.

Such practice can be considered user-flow, but for your project documentation. Documentation can be dedicated to internal or external usage. In the case of external documents, it is better to provide a clear explanation of every term, and its specific meaning in the project.

Documentation should communicate ideas in clear language to set lingua franca between stakeholders, internal members, and users. Proper maintenance is very important as documents that are outdated or inconsistent automatically lose their value.

It is a good practice to establish some sort of maintenance and update schedule. You can either make it at regular intervals, i. Automated emails or release notes can help you follow the changes made by the development team.

You can also use a version control tool to manage this process more efficiently. It will let you track changes made, retain previous versions and drafts, and keep everyone aligned. The agile method is based on a collaborative approach to creating documentation.

If you want to achieve efficiency, interview programmers and testers about the functionalities of the software. Then, after you have written some documentation, share it with your team and get feedback. To get more information try to comment, ask questions, and encourage others to share their thoughts and ideas.

Every team member can make a valuable contribution to the documents you produce. The person who generally does this job is called a technical writer. A tech writer with an engineering background can gather information from developers without requiring someone to explain in detail what is going on. He or she will be able to take part in regular meetings and discussions. The agile methodology encourages engineering teams to always focus on delivering value to their customers. This key principle must also be considered in the process of producing software documentation.

Good software documentation should be provided whether it is a software specifications document for programmers and testers or software manuals for end-users. Comprehensive software documentation is specific, concise, and relevant. You should rather focus only on those documents that directly help achieve project objectives. Yes, I understand and agree to the Privacy Policy.

You need to add documentation maintenance to your content. Put also troubleshooting guide and workflow to speed up resolution time by reducing time to find out source of the problem. Thanks for the advice, Sudiro! Hi all, as former software developer, software user documentation designer and now owning a Tech Communication company, I would suggest to include tools born to help the technical writer.

We meet a lot of companies that start the user documentation journey just with editors. Or with general-purpose tools.

With those systems, you can build various publications starting from the same content. High reuse of information. And you can easily manage multilingual user documentation. A very well constructed and informative article. I would also suggest that aspects of third-party solutions that make up the entire system be fully documented so there is no doubt about what makes up the entire solution, An aspect that I think is not covered so well as just how you bring all this together integrated with your database schema details in an organised and structured manner so that there … Read more ».

Furthermore, a software can have lots of features.. Thank you very much for your attention, this article is very useful!! Hi Giulia, thanks for the question! Keeping this process organized requires guidelines, timeframe, and frameworks.

In reply to your second comment, UX documentation would also cover functionality points including the required features. Estimates are created before the project starts and can be changed in the course of product development. But if a team is small, a project manager can write the documentation. Also, you can hire a technical writer to complete this task. The value to the organization is the documentation.

From this documentation patents can be developed, contracts can be crafted. Basically, the intellectual property of the organization is in the documentation, not the software itself. For this reason, many organizations continue to use a hybrid adaptation of Water-Fall for documentation. Adobe XD at newserialkeys is a vector-based user experience tool for web applications: mobile applications developed and published by Adobe Inc. It is available for macOS and Windows, although there are iOS and Android versions to help you preview the work directly.

XD is much easier to use than Illustrator or Photoshop. Join the list of 9, subscribers and get the latest technology insights straight into your inbox. Altexsoft Menu.