Searchable
Find the software area or documentation you are searching for quickly, via text searches.
Searchable
Why a Software Documentation Solution Needs to be Searchable
A Software Documentation System should be searchable in order to find what you are looking for as quickly as possible.
While text searches are one of the more obvious ways to search, a Software Documentation System should also provide the ability to search by context. In other words, you should be able to easily search for related items without having to start a brand new search. It should be assumed that you may want to see closely related items, and therefore these items should be already made available to click on and view more about them, giving you a comprehensive understanding of the problem domain.
Searching by context should also include visual context. For example, if you are viewing an object within a hierarchy of objects, the other objects in the hierarchy should be available for viewing as well. Or if there are some logical relationships that are determined to be important by the Software developers, those relationships and objects should be presented to the user, and available to drill into, without having to do another search.
Contextual searches may turn out to be more useful that text searches, since text searches are often started from no particular context. However, when doing text searches, the SDS should also provide domain related context, that allows you to refine your text searches to specific domains of the SDS, such as object type, or pre-specified items to capture about object types. For example, you may pre-specify “design rationale” as something to capture about a certain type of object. You should be able to confine your text searches to just “design rationale” and only search specific object types.
In summary, whether you are doing text searches, contextual searches, or visual/graphical exploration of your Software, the Software Documentation System should make it as easy and intuitive as possible to find what you are looking for.
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