RE: Benchmarking Technical Documentation

[ccallen -at- beckman -dot- com]

Wade (and several others) seem to believe Andrew's five questions are,
indeed, golden.

>I made mine into a power point and put it on my wall

> Andrew Plato wrote:
> [snipped]
> When documenting something, you must answer the five golden questions:
>
> 1. What is it?
> 2. What does it do?
> 3. What is its purpose?
> 4. How does it work (or how does it do what it is supposed to do)?
> 5. Why is it relevant?
> [end snip]
>

The first three (and maybe the fifth) are relevant, but can easily be
covered in a few paragraphs in the intro or description section. How it
works is seldom of interest to the user (do I care how my telephone or VCR
works? no). But the most important question isn't even mentioned--HOW DO I
USE IT? That's what user's really, really need to know.

Cheers,
Carma



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