System documentation and user documentation are the two types of documents. System documentation is required for better understanding and maintenance of the application software. User documentation is designed to help the user operate the system. A good-quality document requires designing the documents, writing and editing the text, and testing them, and hence takes longer time for documentation. Lower-quality
documentation can be produced faster. Nowadays online documentation is becoming more important compared to traditional paper-based manuals. Users are more familiar with paper-based documents and these are simpler to use. Although online documents require people to be familiar with additional software commands, searching for information is easier in online documents. These also enable the users to interact with the document.
There are mainly three types of user documentation: reference documents, procedure manuals and tutorials. Reference documents are used when the user needs to learn how to perform a specific function. Procedure manuals describe how to perform business tasks. Tutorials teach people how to use major components of the system.
System documentation is intended to help programmers and systems analysts understand the application software and enable them to build it or maintain it after the system is installed.
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