Newsletter of the Society for Technical Communication, San Francisco Chapter
October/November 2005
| Newsletter of the Society for Technical Communication, San Francisco Chapter October/November 2005 |
In the July meeting presentation, Peter Schorer, author of How to Create Zero-Search-Time Computer Documentation, outlined the ZST method for producing documentation. ZST documentation allows users to find the information they want in less than 25 seconds at least 80% of the time. The method is technology independent, and thus can be applied to the creation of online and/or paper documentation.
Even at this late date, the fields of documentation and human factors (computer-human interface [CHI] design) do not have a simple metric for the effectiveness of their products. And yet measurement of results is a central requirement of any technical field. Peter believes that the simple metric is "look-up-time": the speed with which users of the product can find how to do what they want to do. As he has written: "Strange though it may seem, everything falls into its proper place once we make look-up-time the central criterion of success: the organization of indexes and of instructional text, the order in which the work of documentation is to be done, what should be covered, the relative importance of writing style -- all fall into place when lookup-time is the central concern."
ZST documentation provides what past attempts at measuring quality of technical writing -- usability studies and user tests -- have not. It provides a metric that offsets our work environment: the remnants of the economic recession and off-shoring of technical communications jobs. ZST provides a remarkably simple and effective numerical measure for the quality of a piece of documentation, in that users should be able to find what they are looking for in less than 25 seconds at least 80% of the time. The steps to produce ZST documentation begin with an old familiar one: establish minimum skills and vocabulary for an audience. Next, construct your index by "things" (nouns), and not verbs. Immediately under each thing, indented, list all the common tasks performed on the thing with a link to instructions.
Instructions should not be more than seven main steps, with each step broken down again into less than seven sub-steps. Each procedure should be preceded by a description of its purpose, for example, to transfer a file from your computer.... Begin each step with an imperative verb, for example, Define, Copy, Access, Use, and Terminate.
The design of ZST documentation includes an "outside in" design. First define the first screen that the user sees when the program is run, which specifies the major tasks that can be performed with the program; then, define the next-lower level of screens, which defines the top level implementations of the major tasks; then, the next-lower level itself, which defines steps to implement top level implementations, and so on.
In the ZST documentation model, programming should come after the user interface has been designed, "Use It Before You Build It!"
For more information, refer to Peter Schorer's book How to Create Zero-Search-Time Computer Documentation, available online free at www.zsthelp.com, or in paperback from www.amazon.com. Peter may be contacted at (510) 548-3827 and peteschorer@cs.com.
Reyn Johnson is a technical writer with over 14 years experience in the semiconductor, Internet commerce, and software industries. Currently, Reyn develops storage management/information life cycle software documentation.
Copyright © 2005 by the Society for Technical Communication, San Francisco Chapter (www.stc-sf.org). This article may be reprinted in another STC publication under the provisions of the chapter's copyright policy.