Re: STC Letter to the Editor

[Andrew Plato <gilliankitty -at- yahoo -dot- com>]

> It occurs to me that this question goes right to the heart of 
> so many quality debates; it seeks to identify and separate 
> two distinct issues. Artistic presentation could include all 
> the subjective quality interpretations that exist while value 
> represents the objective ones. I'll admit that considering 
> quality as two related but distinct issues somehow clarifies 
> it for me. It's been a struggle to both define and assure 
> quality here, as it's been on every job and probably is for you. 

Quality in technical documentation is accuracy, value of information, and
insight. The perfect technical manual is 100% technically accurate and provides
useful insight and information to the reader. The layout, styles, methods used to
generate the material, and the media used to disseminate the documentation are of
marginal consideration. 

Were I to judge a document, I would weigh the categories as such:

95% - Value and usefulness of the content. 
5% - Style, presentation, organization.
0% - Methods and tools used to generate the document.

And you know what - this is EXACTLY how a real reader rates documents. They care
NOTHING about the tool you used. And don't even give me the "well if I used Word
I couldn't generate decent content." 

Bullpucky. Some of the most insightful material I have ever read was in a frickin
1K text file. Not a LICK of formatting or style. A pile of shit in a pretty pink
box covered with ponies and fairies is still a box full of shit. 

The truth is, good technical documentation actually has a high degree of
creativity in it. But most people equate creativity in tech docs with fonts and
styles. Real creativity in technical material is inside how the author is able to
explain and describe complex technologies. For example, a good process diagram
can have an astounding amount of creativity in it - if the writer really
understands the material.

This is why STC competitions are utterly worthless. The judges are selecting
winners based on superficial aspects like design and layout. They are not judging
the technical or informational merit of the material because - they don't
understand the material. The ideal judge for tech docs should be sales or
customer praise. 

The main reason behind these pointless beauty contests is because STC wants the
business community to accept people who have ZERO technical skills as legitimate
authors and writers. Therefore, these competitions are merely another tactic to
give legitimacy to bad material. I've read some of the material that won STC
awards. It was pure crap. 

What is even more humorous is that a good percentage of the material presented at
STC competitions wasn't even written by the authors. Some SME handed those
writers the content and they just prettied it up and then won an award with it. 

And, as with all things STC, you have to PAY to enter the contest. Hence the
entries are limited to those people/companies that are willing to pony up the
$100 to enter. And of course, only STC members are allowed to enter. Once again
making another STC endevour lack any real credibility. 

As for objectively judging documents. The best person to judge a document is a
reader/user. Hence, I think if STC wants to make their competitions serious:

1. All can enter, not just STC members.
2. NON-STC judges.
3. Finalists must be run through a rigorous testing with actual users, not STC
members who are jockeying for positions of power. 
4. Wipe out all the regional competitions and have one national one. Make it a
real honor to win. 

I think you would find that ugly, slapped together docs with rich amount of
information and insight would overwhelmingly triumph over slick, single-sourced
shit. Because if users were actually picking the winners, they wouldn't care one
infantecimal iota that your company had achieved maturity model 4 or used
Clutzbuck the Internationally Approved Information Mapping Methodology or that
you volunteered for the annual STC free-form font fondling retreat. 

Andrew Plato 



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