RE: Benchmarking Technical Documentation

Subject: RE: Benchmarking Technical Documentation
From: SIANNON -at- VISUS -dot- JNJ -dot- com
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2001 13:12:33

I see an interesting distinction of scope being ignored in this
discussion.

I see people implying that concern over form/format equates to "3 typos and
you're out", when that's not necessarily what the people are saying.

If I read a piece of documentation in which subjects and verbs are
occasionally missing from sentences (which is not at all uncommon in docs
prepped by developers, especially those for whom the documentation's
language is not a primary language), it can take me several minutes to
figure out what the writer was trying to say. I've had to hunt down
developers and business-types alike to try to decipher what they meant,
since a missing subject can make all the following pronouns refer to
something entirely different. This can cause user error and much grief.

Navigability and organization, as another response indicated, is a more
extended version of the same concept. It's the clarity portion of the
equation (accuracy, clarity, completeness, conciseness and consistency).

Just a note since I saw the discussion going bipolar for a minute.

Shauna I.

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