Which documents?

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If the following arguments are the only reasons why you consider creating a document, don’t create it:

“Everybody does it.”

“We’ve always done it this way.”

“I don’t know where else I should put the information.”

Create a particular document only if:

users actually need the document

legal requirements necessitate that you create the document

Tip:
If you think that users expect a particular document, but if you aren’t convinced that users actually need this document, don’t create it. Consider adding the information to another document and choose a title or subtitle that makes clear that the information can be found there.

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Decisions involved

When planning the documents to create, you need to answer two major groups of questions:

Can you include all information in one document, or do you need to provide several documents? If you provide several documents: Which information goes into which document?
See One document or multiple documents?

How should you title your documents so that readers know where to find different types of information?
See How should you name your documents?


Layer information

Find the right amount of redundancy