Scenarios for software products: what, why, and how

As technical writers, we know about the role of various presentation methods in conveying information about software products, such as ordered lists for presenting procedures, diagrams for presenting processes, and tables for presenting classifications. But where do scenarios fit in and what do they look like? Traditionally, scenarios are not viewed as a necessary part of software product documentation. But with the increasing interdependence of software products and the increasing need for software and documentation that are easy to use, scenarios give us a way to briefly but effectively describe the interactions of related products and to emphasize what users want to do