Technical Authoring > FAQ's
(Frequently Asked Questions)

Isn't getting outside contractors to produce our documentation too expensive ?

If you have the proper dedicated in-house resources for the production of documentation (that is your own technical author, using a suitable desktop publishing application), going to an outside contractor may well be more expensive in the short term.  (A contractor will necessarily need a learning curve, which your in-house resources probably will not.)

If you do not have the proper resources, you may well be able to produce some documentation cheaper than a contractor, but will it be the right kind of documentation ?

Regardless of how good your product is, the wrong kind of documentation - which isn't correctly oriented to the reader's needs - will detract from the perceived quality of the product... and this will cost you money (and prestige) in the long term.

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Don't my own employees know best what to include in the documentation ?

This is unlikely, unless the item being described is so simple that its documentation is trivial.

Conversely, if a product is very complex, it is a common failing for far too much information to be included in its documentation. This is particularly the case where the documentation is produced by one of the product's designers. (It's only understandable that a designer would want to document every ingenious feature of 'his/her' product, but does the reader really want to know this ?)

For a document's readers, too much information is just as bad as too little, as it makes it difficult to determine what in the document is relevant and what isn't.

A good technical author will approach the documentation from the basis of its intended readers.  He will establish what the reader needs to know (and doesn't need to know) about the product, and determine how this is best presented so that the reader can easily find the information required.

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Doesn't it take too long to get the documentation produced by outside contractors ?

Why should it take a specialist contractor longer to produce a document than, say, your own in-house resources ?  Chances are that, particularly if you consider setting up new in-house resources, a specialist contractor with many years experience would take less time.

Probably the real issue here is that you need to plan for the production of the documentation as early as possible. Certainly, if you have planned for a product launch on a specific date, you should also have planned for completion of the necessary documentation before that date.

Nevertheless, crises do occur in any organisation, and if you find you have what seems to be an impossible timescale, approaching a specialist like Ipsitech could well be your best plan.

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Isn't my product too complicated for an outside technical author to understand ?

It shouldn't be. Technical authors are information specialists and as such, often have a wide background of technical knowledge, from various disciplines.  

Often, very complex machinery is used by unskilled or sem-skilled operators, but you wouldn't expect such operators to know - or necessarily want to know - how the machinery functions, only how to make it function.

What a good technical author will do is determine what information the reader needs to know, and then gather that information from the relevant sources.

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Why can't we produce all our own documentation ourselves ?

You may be able to, but only if you have the necessary resources, that is (a) the right person to do the job (with the necessary technical authoring skills) and (b) the right equipment (i.e. suitable Desktop Publishing software).

If you are a large company with a regular need to produce documentation, then you may well be able to produce all your own documentation.  However, even large companies can sometimes require additional assistance, and when this is needed, it makes sense to seek such assistance from specialists like Ipsitech.

If you are a small company , it is usually not practical to invest in the necessary resources to produce your own documentation.  Using people as authors when they have not been trained in the necessary skills is counter-productive, so again, it makes sense to consult specialists like Ipsitech.

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