Artifact: End-User Support Material
 End-User Support Material |
Materials that support the end-user in learning and using the product. |
| Worker: | Technical Writer |
Purpose 
The purpose is to teach and guide the user how to use the product.
Enclosed Documents and Artifacts
- Installation artifacts
(if the software is installed by the end-user) - User's guide
- Using the product
- Using online demos and help
- Online help system, context-sensitive help
- Demos
- Tutorial
(may include training courses) - Release Notes
- Maintenance Description
Timing
Produce the manuals early in the development process and update through each iteration. This helps users evaluate each release, and ensures early and continuous user feedback.
Responsibility
The test team or the technical writer is responsible for creating and updating the material.
Additional Information
The end-user documentation gives instructions for using the software. Provide documentation for all types of users.
Use use cases as a basis for your user's guide.
The user manual can be written by technical writers, with input from developers, or it can be written by the test team, whose members are likely to understand the user's perspective.
A reason for allocating the user manual to the test team is that it can be generated in parallel with development and evolved early as a tangible and relevant perspective of evaluation criteria. Errors and poor solutions in the user interface and use-case model can be spotted and corrected during the early iterations of the project, when changes are cheaper.
By writing the user manual, the testers will get to know the system well before they start any full-scale testing. Furthermore, it provides a necessary basis for test plans and test cases, and for construction of automated test suites.
How early in the development cycle to begin producing the user manual depends on the type of system. Systems with complex interfaces or with a lot of user interaction will require early versions of the user manual and also early prototypes of the interface. Embedded systems with little human interface will probably not require an early start on user documentation.
