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In a discussion of the frequently forlorn hope for metrics regarding
the contribution of documentation to a company's bottom line, I am
always reminded of the difficulty that colleges and universities have
historically had in explaining the financial value of a liberal arts
degree. Since there is seldom a direct correlation between the "fuzzy"
subjects embodied in liberal arts with income potential, that is
usually something of a lost cause as well.
A few years ago, at a meeting of the local STC chapter in Dallas, the
former docs manager from Texas Instruments related a story. Several
major customers of TI were asked why they selected TI components
rather than those of their competitors. The number one answer was that
the documentation was so good they had no trouble in incorporating
their components into the customer's designs.
For the next two or three years, the tech docs department was riding
high around there, until the powers that be began to forget that
result and things returned to their historical low level of regard and
tech docs were once again relegated in mindshare to the "necessary
evil" class.
Most companies don't do a very good job of studying what motivates
their customers--let's face facts. The majority of "studies" I have
seen are only to confirm prejudices, not to truly determine the
customers' motivations. Of course, often the customers themselves have
a poorly defined grasp of why they make the decisions they do as well.
They may take documentation for granted too. Or, in too many cases,
their experience with inferior documentation has meant that they
largely ignore it with new products. If you doubt this, ask any help
desk operator how often they field questions the answers for which are
clearly stated and easily found in the documentation! (There is, after
all, a reason for the time-honored acronym RTFM...)
The one bright spot--now that so much is moving "into the cloud"--it
will become quite easy to collect statistics for docs hosted on your
own cloud servers.
David
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