What is DDLC or Document Life Cycle?

1. Understanding the Requirements
Understanding requirements is the first phase of the document development life cycle. In this phase the technical writer is supposed to understand all the requirements of the project. As per the project or document type technical writer starts to gather the material that is useful for the project. The necessary information is gathered and analyzed in this phase. In the beginning of the project technical writer tries to understand what are the requirements of the project and gathers material to build the project.

This process involves lot of efforts. Subject matter expert who is the genesis of the knowledge provides information regarding the project. Technical writer meets software developers and learns the features of the new product. Technical writer resolves all the queries and problems regarding the project with the help of SME and software developers. The help received from SME and software developers is not sufficient to work on the project. Technical writer searches the related information on online libraries and from the company resource. Previous completed projects also help in building the new project if it has some connections with the new one.

This phase can be called study of functional domain. Technical writer needs to discuss the issues with knowledgeable people for the appropriate information and guidance. Meeting with important people connected with the project proves beneficial. This phase involves using and experimenting the product in various ways that gives an idea about the new product. At the end of this phase technical writer must have resolved all the problems and queries in terms of understanding the documentation. Technical writer must study the software from the technical point of view so that will be able to explain well in the document for audience.

2.Audience Analysis
Technical writer writes documents or user manuals for the audience or users. Audience is inseparable part of the documentation. Technical writer must know the type of audience group that is going to use the product. There are varieties of audience available Worldwide. Across the world all the audience are not at the same level or similar in their usage and understanding of the product. Audience varies as per the product. All the audience does not use all the products. There are many types of audience but mainly categorized in two - General Audience (Novice Audience) and Experienced Audience (Special Audience).

These categories are based on the education and knowledge of user about the product. Novice user is the person who is completely blank about the product information. Novice user purchases the product on their knowledge that gained from the society and tries to use it. Experienced users are completely contrary to the novice audience. Special users have either complete or little bit knowledge of product. Mostly educated people come under the category of special audience. There are two sources to know your audience- Internal Source and External Source. Internal source means to get knowledge about the audience from software developers for whom they are making the product. You can also ask to SME about an audience. Believe what the software developers and SME are telling but don't rely on them. Try to find out the information about your audience from external sources means vising actual audience who are going to use the product.

3.Outlining the Document

This phase helps you to create the outline of the document. Outlining the document is the overall plan of the document. It is the skeletal framework of your document. It shows overall structure of the document. Outline of the document do not contain the elements in explained way but in brief. In this phase you just put all the elements serially to expand them so that you won't miss any one of the elements from document. Outlining the document is the well defined plan that can be discussed explicitly. Outline of the document is similar to the skeleton without flesh. Outline gives an idea about the placement of the elements in the Ad. The skeletal information comprises of Preface or introduction, Table of Contents, Chapter information/sequence, index, bibliography etc. Technical writer only needs to explain all the elements once the plan is ready. Outline of the document gives the clear view of the complete document at a glance.

4.Preparing Prototype

A style guide or style manual is a set of standards for design and writing of documents, either for general use or for a specific publication or organization. Preparing prototype comprises of several important stages such as template consideration, developing Style Guides etc.

Template Consideration- Template is the physical appearance of the document. While deciding template you need to decide all the specifications and standards regarding the template of the Ad. Page size, page margins, fonts, headings, list types, alignments, gutter space, etc are to be supposed while contemplating the template. Once the template is ready develop the contents in main sections and prepare a detailed design.

Style Guides- Style guides are particularly important in technical writing projects. A style guide or style manual is a set of standards for design and writing of documents, either for general use or for a specific publication or organization. Where technical writing is undertaken in a large team or project, it is important that the finished documentation is devoid of any one individual's discernible personal style. A style guide is just one of the tools that can be used to help achieve this along with 5the use of specific standards. Style guide is the guide of rules and regulations that are followed by every person working on the project. Microsoft style Guide for Technical Publication is the best industry standard style guide that is used in most of the companies.

5.Developing Actual Help System

In this phase the actual development of help system starts. Technical writer explains all the contents that are collected and planned in outlining phase. This phase gives birth to the document. The duration of this phase is greater than the other phases. Once the template is defined all the contents are explained explicitly in the document. Detailed table of contents is created with page numbers in this stage. Cross references are created and maintained. Glossary and index is created after completion of the document. In this stage technical writer needs to perform all the actions that are supposed to build complete document.

6.Review

Review means to check the Document for any errors and some other corrections. There re three types of reviews- Peer Review, Technical review and Functional Review.

Peer review- Peer review (also known as refereeing) is the process of subjecting an author's work, research or ideas to the scrutiny of others who are experts in the same field. Peer review requires a community of experts in a given field, who are qualified and able to perform impartial review. Impartial review, especially of work in less narrowly defined or inter-disciplinary fields, may be difficult to accomplish; and the significance (good or bad) of an idea may never be widely appreciated among its contemporaries. Peer review has been criticized as ineffective, slow, and misunderstood This process encourages authors to meet the accepted standards of their discipline and prevents the dissemination of irrelevant findings, unwarranted claims, unacceptable interpretations, and personal views. Publications that have not undergone peer review are likely to be regarded with suspicion by scholars and professionals.

Technical Review- The purpose of a technical review is to arrive at a technically superior version of the work product reviewed, whether by correction of defects or by recommendation or introduction of alternative approaches. A technical review is a form of peer review in which "a team of qualified personnel ... examines the suitability of the documents for its intended use and identifies discrepancies from specifications and standards. Technical reviews may also provide recommendations of alternatives and examination of various alternatives"

7.Packaging

Packaging means making the product ready to deliver to the client. There are two types of Packaging- Book design and binding, Integrating help in Application. If the help manual is in book format which is supposed to go along with the product, goes for printing to produce copies. Online help is integrated with the help of software developers in the respective application. Online help is always delivered with the help of CD or the devices that can be used to carried out the data. There are different types of delivering the help to the clients depending on the product.