Many of the more complex websites we produce at Sandbox Media require more than just an intuitive administration user interface to allow our clients to use the system we have built for them.
In such a situation, where the administration section has been built bespoke for the needs of the site and the client’s specification, it is necessary to document the completed system in the form of a user guide to allow the end users to understand all aspects of the software we have created.
This is required even when considering that our Agile approach to software projects ensures that our clients are involved in the production of the software at all parts of the website in development. So that even if they have had active involvment in the development of an administration section, the finer, or more technical aspects of the admin section still need to be documented.
We have recently started moving away from documenting the functions of the administration section in hard or soft copy PDFs, Word Documents etc., in favour of collaborative Wiki systems. The advantages are numerous. For example,
- rather than having to republishing any existing documentation on system updates, we login, edit and save updates of the existing documented Wiki page,
- getting the client involved in the production of the user guide ensures that the language used isn’t overtly technical or inappropiate,
- any instructions the client doesn’t understand can be easily re-written,
- access is available at anytime, anywhere.
Wiki systems are generally easy to use and don’t need much in the way of guidance, so the technical ability of the client isn’t an issue, and in most cases, no additional resources need to be assigned to maintain it.
The introduction of this use of Wiki systems has worked so well we include it as standard as part of the majority of projects we undertake.