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Subject:RE: What is "well Written"? From:John Posada <jposada01 -at- yahoo -dot- com> To:"Chinell, David F \(GE Indust, Security\)" <David -dot- Chinell -at- GE -dot- com>, techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Wed, 16 May 2007 07:46:33 -0700 (PDT)
--- "Chinell, David F (GE Indust, Security)" <David -dot- Chinell -at- GE -dot- com>
wrote:
> cost. But I got bogged down (as did many here) on determining what
> "quality" documentation is. In the end, there was simply no simple,
> meaningful way to determine this quality.
About a month ago, I took a week-long course on Six Sigma
and last week, an intensive week (they even call it a boot camp) on
usability from the usability group at Bentley College in Mass (two of
the instructors were Bill Gribbons and Joe Dumas).
It suddenly occured to me that what I've been looking for, the
ability to quantify documentation quality, is a joining of those two
approaches. Six Sigma to quantify improvement, and usability to know
how to figure out what to change to achieve the Six Sigma goal.
It solved two issues for me; the question of whether what is being
produced is good, and to discount the oft-repeated chant "Know they
audience" because most times, the audience doesn't know what it needs
and you can only figure this out through continued testing and
improvement modifications.
John Posada
Senior Technical Writer
"They say everyone needs goals. Mine is to live forever.
So far, so good."
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