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Re: STC Letter to the Editor

Subject: Re: STC Letter to the Editor
From: Bruce Byfield <bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Sat, 02 Nov 2002 16:41:51 -0800


Andrew Plato wrote:

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.

As you can probably guess from my past posts,I wouldn't call design and layout superficial aspects. However, I agree that if an award is given on this basis, then its criteria ought to be clearly identified in the title of the award. The problem isn't that usable design isn't worthy of an award, but that it's not the only aspect to consider.

Moreover, you do identify a real problem with tech-writing awards: unless the judges know the subject matter, how can they judge the usefulness of the information?

Maybe the ideal contest would be controlled usability testing with a dozen lay people supervised by judges. At the end of using the documentation, the lay people could rate it for various aspects of usability.

--
Bruce Byfield bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com 604.421.7177
http://members.axion.net/~bbyfield

"I can see lights in the distance
Trembling in the dark cloak of night
Candles and lanterns are dancing, dancing
A waltz on All Souls Night. "
- Loreena McKennitt, "All Souls Night"


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Re: STC Letter to the Editor: From: Andrew Plato

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