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How to write good specs

As a specs writer need to trick people into reading your stuff, and not make someone with small brains to leak out through eye-sockets.

Four Rules:

  1. Be funny
    • Best place is inside the examples section
    • If don't think you can be funny due to 'professionalism', then change job
  2. Writing a spec is like writing code for a brain to execute
    • Ask yourself if the person reading the spec will understand it at a deep level.
  3. Write as simply as possible
    • Use the most simple language possible, even if it doesn't seem professional
    • Use big fonts and don't make the page seem full of words, add loads of white space and vary the fonts.
    • Screenshots are a must!
  4. Review and reread several times
    • When you find a sentence that isn't super easy to understand, rewrite it.
  5. Templates considered harmful
    • Don't have sections on templates which aren't an important for every feature
    • Want people to read. Drop the idea of a template

Apple on Prototypes