RE: Benchmarking Technical Documentation

Subject: RE: Benchmarking Technical Documentation
From: Mike Stockman <stockman -at- jagunet -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2001 14:26:53 -0400

On 07/25/2001 1:02 PM, Kelly Williamson (kwcwtech -at- iwaynet -dot- net) wrote:

>What you do need to do is test the software/product
>and make sure it actually does what you think it's going to do. My last
>project was a Web application. While I'm extremely competent with HTML, I
>never once needed to look at the code to describe to the users how to use
>the application.

In this example, a quick view of the underlying code could tell you, for
example, how many characters a user can enter into a field. You could
also ask the developer (who may or may not know, and who most likely
would just look at the code) or type characters until the product stops
you, but it's easier and quicker to check the code yourself.

If you didn't know HTML, you might be able to document the product, but
you'd be doing it either with less detail or less efficiently.

In this example, more knowledge leads to more efficiency, because you
depend less on SMEs to tell you what you need to know.

Bottom line is that if you know too little about a product, you are
*incapable* of making a reasoned decision about what to include and
exclude, because you don't know the full set of information that could be
included.

----->Mike

________________________________________________________________
stockman -at- jagunet -dot- com -- AOL and AOL Instant Messenger:MStockman



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