technical writing - How should I document a product release with an inherently flawed design?

The deadline is looming and someone realizes the product can't be shipped without documentation. Once the product leaves the remit of the software engineers (who obviously only ever write wonderful code) and is passed on to a more objective audience an obvious design flaw is discovered. May be the password is being sent using GET, maybe the so-called REST API is inherently stateful, maybe there is just some kludge which makes loading the data very painful.

Anyway, there is no capacity to change the code to fix the flaw before the deadline. Something must be shipped and documented as-is. The engineering team will have to fix it with a patch in the next version.

What is an effective strategy for documenting such a product? Should the design flaws be highlighted or ignored?

Answer

This is essentially a business problem, which is not to say it is off topic, because technical writers exist to solve business problems. But it is not a problem the writer should try to solve on their own. You have to get guidance from the product manager.

However, there is a very good chance that the product manager has not thought this through, so you may have to go to them an lay out a set of options and their potential consequences:

1. 
   

   Document the flaws clearly. Likely consequences: limited adoption. Upsides: avoid disappointing or misleading customers. Hopefully keep them interested in what you are doing for the next release.

   
   



2. 
   

   Don't mention the flaws at all. Likely consequences: higher initial adoption followed by disappointment and possibly lawsuits when the flaws become apparent. You may turn customers off long term and not have the chance to win them back once the fixed version is released. Alternatively, you may survive the initial disappointment and ride the first mover advantage to a home run with the second release.

   
   


3. 
   

   Document around the flaws. That is, write up procedures that work around the design flaws. Likely consequences: The product may appear weirdly designed or over complicated on first release, which may not matter if it has unique functionality that people want. Second version can then be sold as a significant upgrade with improved ease of use. However, the time to develop, test, and document the workarounds could delay the release.

   
   

Option three is way more common than most people may suspect.