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Subject:Editorial and technical reviews From:bmaaks -at- TELLABS -dot- COM Date:Thu, 30 Jan 1997 10:41:03 CST
Sue Heim received many good responses to her dilemma. I'm not sure what
type of the "technical stuff" is included in the "left field or right
field, or [being] right on base?" I'm guessing that it is the mechanics
of the online help, a sort of template, that will be used for all pages.
I have another suggestion. I may be way off base with what is possible in
Sue's situation, but I have found it can be effective to provide reviewers
with only the materials I want them to review. Sometimes I ask reviewers to
look at only one aspect of a document. I think this is especially handy
with online documents, where I want a usability review to check the links
between the page/topic and the link location, and check the format of the page.
Is it possible for you to create a "template" that generalizes the
content so it is not part of the review--like making placeholder pages,
maybe limiting the content/text to the title of the procedure or topic that
the page will describe?
I have found that reviewers (I work with LOTS of engineers) will edit for
typos, misspellings and any other kind of error, whether or not you ask for it.
I try to be gracious and accept their input. They are part of my audience,
and I am writing for them. The end-users of my documents may not be so
kind and forgiving of these errors, right?
Eternally testing new methods,
Betsy Maaks
bmaaks -at- tellabs -dot- com
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