Question, After some thoughts I''ve come up with a way to do the design document for my program. Actually, what I want to do is have a few different design documents. The reason being is my program will require a huge amount of documents covering each aspect of the program. As a professional, what do all of you professionals out there recommend? Should I keep all documentation in one design document or would a couple different documents be alright? By the way, the documents would be something like: Interface Document (Contains the complete, detailed information on the Interface from start to finish), Character and Race Documentation (Contains all the detailed information on character development, types of races, stats of each race, skills for each race, history and so forth), Content Documentation (Contains items, events, quests, etc.), Technical Information Documentation (Contains all the technical information such as system requirements, help, manual plans, etc.). Please only constructive critism, intelligent comments, helpful suggestions and so forth. Alan Co-Founder/Lead Designer Ariandora RPG System

I''m no professional, but I think multiple documents would be really good, if you have a whole load of information for each section. One is fine too, but if you are working with a bunch of specialized people then it might be good to have individualized docs for each section to give to each job. It sounds like a good way to be organized and such, and most design documents I''ve seen that were just one, each section probably could have been their own section. Anyway, if your typing it on the computer, it''s not difficult to combine them into one if you feel like it later.

Either way is fine... Single doc or multiple doc. I myself use multiple docs to organize my info better.

Alex Ford
PointSoft EA Co., Ltd.
http://www.pointsoftonline.com

I agree, how you do it depends mostly on the size of the project. In a brief design sketch, or a doc for a small game (up to 50 pages) you can put everything into one.
If you work on a large project however (team > 6), it´s a good idea to split things up, but with document editors it´s no problem either way.
Just be sure to put EVERYTHING into the doc. Remember: It can´t be too long, or contain too much redundant info.
Sounds stupid, but if you make it twice as big as it needs to be, the team members will spend a little more time reading, and looking for the things they need.
If you make it too small, they´re not going to find the things they need, which leads to errors being made and things having to be redesigned, or designed on the fly. Which basically equals more costs.

Have you considered an on-line, hypertext linked doc? Most of the docs I''ve seen have been MS Word and were broken up between technical (TechSpec) and content / representation info (Design Doc).

I''ve found, though, as I''ve worked on bigger projects that it''s damn irritating to not have the info linked. I spend a lot of time opening docs and searching because I can''t remember what''s where (I may have my docs broken down into too many files, tho''). Anyways, just a thought...



--------------------
Just waiting for the mothership...