Internal study

[Kristen Lorenz <klor -at- INTFACE -dot- COM>]

Hi everyone,

For my grad school research project I am conducting a review of our
documentation. Since our resources are few, I am going to begin by doing
an internal review. After which I can build on to it and spearhead an
external review of our users.

Communication is a BIG problem here, and as a result, our documentation
process is rushed, incorrect, and often the last thing on anyone's mind.
Anyway - I am going to be talking to departments (engineering, tech.
support, quality control) to help me understand their jobs, frustrations
with documentation, concerns (if any, for that matter), in hopes of
forming better relationships and methods of working with them to
receive/review product information early in the cycle - before it hits
the customers.

I'm doing 4 things:

*       preliminary survey (did this today)
*       interviews
*       editing session (not sure what will be reviewed yet - may be a
comparison of old layout to the new one)
*       evaluation of internal review


Anyone else ever done something like this?  Any advice, comments would
be appreciated!

Kristen
klor -at- intface -dot- com

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