Technical Writing Estimations Question Title * 1. What authoring tools do you use? Please check all that apply. If you are using something else, please detail this in the "Other" section. Feel free to leave a comment below. Micrsoft Word 2010 Microsoft Word 2007 Microsoft Word 2003 Earlier Version of MS Word FrameMaker v. 11 FrameMaker v. 10 FrameMaker v. 9 FrameMaker v. 8 Earlier Version of FrameMaker RoboHelp v. 10 RoboHelp v. 9 RoboHelp v. 8 Earlier Version of RoboHelp Flare v. 8 Flare v. 7 Earlier Version of Flare AuthorIT v. 5.5 AuthorIT v. 5 Earlier Version of AuthorIT Doc2Help 2012 Earlier Version of Doc2Help DITA-based Solution Other (please specify) Question Title * 2. What single authoring tool do you use most often as a technical writer? Micrsoft Word FrameMaker RoboHelp AuthorIT Doc2Help DITA-based Solution Other (please specify) Question Title * 3. What department, if any, do you report back to most often? Technical writing department Engineering/Development department Marketing department QA Other (please specify) Question Title * 4. How long does it take you to write a single page of documentation? Listed below are two types - very technical documentation (APIs, SDKS, CLIs, deployment manuals, perhaps, etc.) and user-friendly documentation (standard user documents for web-based applications, Windows apps. and what we would consider less complex). Please check only one option for each type of documentation. Feel free to use the Other and Comment fields if needed. Very technical documents: 1 hr/page Very technical documents: 1.5 hr/page Very technical documents: 2 hr/page Very technical documents: 2.5 hr/page Very technical documents: 3 hr/page Very technical documents: 3.5 hr/page Very technical documents: 4 hr/page Very technical documents: 4.5 hr/page Very technical documents: 5 hr/page More than 5.5 hours per page User-friendly documents: 1 hr/page User-friendly documents: 1.5 hr/page User-friendly documents: 2 hr/page User-friendly documents: 2.5 hr/page User-friendly documents: 3 hr/page User-friendly documents: 3.5 hr/page User-friendly documents: 4 hr/page User-friendly documents: 4.5 hr/page User-friendly documents: 5 hr/page More than 5.5 hours per page Other (please specify) Question Title * 5. How long does it take you to write a single help topic? (This refers to the writing, not the application you are using.) 30 minutes 1 hour 1.5 hours 2 hours 2.5 hours 3 hours 3.5 hours Other (please specify) Question Title * 6. Once you have completed writing your document, we want to know how much time you allocate for the final "release" phase - this would include updating the TOC, index, checking layout/page breaks, doing QA etc. To help us produce an estimate that can be helpful to others, please base your estimate on a 100 page document. If you feel this estimate changes based on which authoring tool you use, please add a note in the "Other" section. Question Title * 7. What do you think is the single greatest challenge facing technical writers today? We aren't offering any options here because we don't want to shape the discussion. Please speak freely, as we are keeping this anonymous. Done