📖 When should you write the user manual?

Most of the time, teams write the user manual at the end of a product development cycle right before the Big 1.0 Release. It is one of those things that is not much fun, and teams subconsciously put it off while fighting bigger fires. But what would happen if we write the user manual first - even before the product spec? Some things that might happen:

• We might think a little more from the user's perspective during the development.
• Our upfront thinking would improve through the process of writing.
• Internal/beta releases would have documentation, allowing others to use them without a lot of hand-holding (saving developers time).
• We would get feedback on the user manual early in the development process so it could be improved before release.

Good user documentation is part of a good release - it helps make the release useful. With doc-driven development, I typically start at the repository README.md or other documentation close to the code, but why not start with the user manual and derive more from that. Start with the experience you want the user to have. Reverse the process.