Hi again
First, Its a bit hard explaining this in text, but I'll try.
It is my belief that many programmers often suffers under a lack of information about their own projects, and also tries to involve the customer somewhat in the development of the projects to get a closer 'feel' of the wanted end-product and fill those lacking gaps of information.
Large scale companies and experienced programmers probably have all kind of things sorted out from the beginning (they know how to do and what to look for), but Im guessing there's a lot of people out there (and also many new developers) who could gain on this thread.
Now, Im having this kind of 'trouble'.
Im in the stage of delivering the first beta to the customer, and they are about to test a whole LOT of functions. To provide an easy, two-way communication which should be used from this point an onto final version, I used emails a lot in the past, and a small degree of IM too, but this isn't overall consistent imho. Also, a forum would be a bit overkill and wouldnt offer the needed features imo.
I am (also) thinking about:
Some kind of conversation control, which can provide an easy access to the conversations (r/w and searchable).
Store the conversations, providing a proof later on (if nescessary).
Making the most out of the least (get generel texts (howto's, q/a and faqs) out to the users, eg. by generating faq from conversations).
An easy interface which can be customized (if needed).
It almost screams out 'weeeeebaapppp' by now .... and that was exactly what I were thinking too 😉
I have looked at the php project, phpMyFAQ (www.phpmyfaq.de), and the concept seems really nice, providing almost all of these 'features', but after Ive tried it out, Im really dissapointed at the project. It just isnt good enough (yet maybe).
It seems to me to be an often forgotten point which ends up taking a lot of time for both parties either by phone, emails or IM. Much can be forgotten, misplaced or misunderstood by that time.
So, I would like to hear from some you who have some actual experience gained in this area or just other goodies.
