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Anuradha Biswas wonders: <<Has anyone created a comprehensive form using
which user guides/online help can be evaluated for technical accuracy? If
yes, what parameters would you define and what rating system?>>
Technical accuracy is pretty much a yes/no proposition: either something is
accurate, or it isn't. (Of course, some things may be expressed sufficiently
unclearly that you can't tell whether the statement is accurate, but that's
another problem. For these statements, reword them explicitly and _then_
test their accuracy.) I don't believe there's any need to come up with
anything as elaborate as a form for evaluating accuracy; as a technical
editor, I assume that every statement is incorrect until proven otherwise
when I examine documentation or help, and that's probably the same approach
you should adopt. If someone says that a particular button or menu choice is
present, confirm that it is; if they say that following a series of steps
produces a specific result, test to ensure that you actually get that
result. And so on.
--Geoff Hart, FERIC, Pointe-Claire, Quebec
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
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