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Ask HN: Design and requirements docs generation

by parvatzar on 2/25/18, 7:56 AM with 1 comments

As a developer I've always despised having to spend countless hours manually drafting , formatting and getting requirements & design documents reviewed. In spite of the obvious value of maintaining a knowledge base of instructions and information for the future developers of the app, I have felt there is a way this can be improved. So all those hours of manual effort can be saved both for the developer and the company. I was looking for already existing solutions or software that automate or enhance the experience of creating such docs. Is there something that exists of this sort? Has this field been amply explored as per your opinion? Any thoughts on a solution on Design & requirements docs generation?

  • by tmaly on 2/26/18, 3:26 PM

    I think you have to formalize the process first. If everyone in the company does something different every time a requirements doc is written, it is just chaos. Steli and Hiten had a great podcast episode on this recently.

    As part of that process, you will need tools to capture the documents and track changes to them. Consider something like Confluence or another type of wiki. You will also need good training. If you expect people across the company to use the process, you have to make it accessible and easy for them to learn.

    A book I would recommend that I am working through now is Writing Great Specifications by Bicieja