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Requirements testing is aimed at verifying whether requirements have adequate characteristics, namely if they are correct, unambiguous, complete and logically consistent. This process is usually performed prior to development of software product.

Technical writing services need to be used when you want to prepare good requirements for your project.  Professional technical writers are responsible for describing complicated product concisely and clearly so that the potential customers can easily understand what problems they solve, their benefits and how to make maximal use of them.

Let us focus on some characteristics of a good requirement

Completeness. Requirement is considered to be complete if it is not missing relevant and necessary information. In addition, the entire suite of requirements should provide coverage for all relevant requirements.  

Common problems with completeness:

• Non-functional requirements do not give detailed information on the product or the links do not lead to corresponding non-functional requirements (for example, “stored passwords must be encoded” – what is a coding algorithm then?”
• Listing is incomplete (for example, “conversion only into formats PDF, PNG, etc., so what does etc. mean??)
• Given links are not uniquely defined (for example, “look above”, instead of “look at column 123.45.b”).

As a rule, a technical writing company has a strong expertise in producing technical requirements documentation for success-driven businesses.

Atomicity. Atomic requirement cannot be broken down into numerous requirements without making it incomplete; it describes one and only thing.

Common problems with atomicity:

• Actually, one requirement contains several separate requirements (for example, button “Restart” must not be displayed when the service is invalid, console “Log” should show at least 20 latest user activities”.
• One and the same requirement contains description of several different things.
• One and the same requirement may be provided in another language, not only in English; therefore can be interpreted in different ways but the initial meaning must not be lost. The reader should arrive at the same interpretation.

To avoid serious problems with requirements elicitation and collection you had better decide in favor of technical writing outsourcing. Having a huge experience in designing business requirements documents, qualified offshore technical writers are able to help your project to succeed. After all, it is no secret that a successful project starts from quality requirements.