The other day, I was talking to one of the interaction designers I work with, and he mentioned something that brought a little shame upon me. He had been talking to one of the application’s users when she pulled out a manual for the legacy application—contained in a binder, I think—and it had loads of handwritten notes in it. I realized that I had ignored one of my own suggestions when dealing with legacy apps. I had not looked at, let alone leveraged, any legacy documentation.

This is a fairly small project and is phase one of two. The user base isn’t large. When I started on the project, I figured I would just document the new system. Much of the work I’ve done over the last few years has to do with applications that replace legacy systems, and I think this time I may have just overlooked the legacy documentation because of the project’s relatively small size.

Even if I don’t end up using any of the legacy content, it’s a valuable exercise to see what’s there, what the users have been making use of. It’s even better to see what notes they’ve been writing in the margins so I know what kinds of information they find important.

The designer will send me the electronic copy of the old manual, which will be a good start. Next will be a trip to the users’ desks to see their own additions, perhaps what you could call the original wiki. Phase one of the project is nearly over, but I’ll have phase two in which to make any adjustments based on what I find out. It’s been a good reminder of what I ought to be doing when documenting applications that are replacing legacy apps.