User's Manual - Software Methodology

The goal of this project phase is to develop the user's manual for your project. It may seem strange to write the user's manual now, since the application has not yet been fully developed, and the user interface may only exists as a series of paper sketches. Due to this, in many respects what you will write can be viewed as a developer's user manual.

The user's manual tells users what you think they need to do to work with your system. They can disagree or not, but it will get them thinking and get them involved. It shows your teammates what you'll need to do. If you can write a user manual that states, step by step, how someone would interact with the system and the users say "yes, that's exactly what I want to do,” then you’re off to a good start. 

One way of viewing the user's manual is that it provides a very user-centered way of thinking about the desired functionality of your system. A clear understanding of the behavior of your system before you start coding is a strong indicator of a solid design.

Since this user's manual is not based on the final running system, there will likely be a need to make modifications to this document as part of the activities of turning in your final project notebook. For example, you will need to insert actual screen shots, and modify functionality descriptions based on any changes you make.

The user's manual has the following main components:

  • Title page
  • Table of Contents
  • Introduction - gives an overview of the project, and how it meets the user's needs.
    • Overview
    • Definitions
    • Platform Specs
    • Getting Started / Installation Guide
  • Manual - detailed instruction on how to use the capabilities of your project, including screen shots where appropriate (these may still be hand-drawn at this point).
    • Describes all areas of the user interface.
    • Complete -- covers all functionality specified in requirements.
    • Quality -- instructions are clear, stepwise, and allow user to verify that they're doing it right.

Be sure to submit your Time Log and Meeting Notes (as usual).
Please put these in a separate document/file.

For more information, see the template, and the gradesheet.