Many organizations produce internal tools or modify available tools for their own use. These tools should be written down for use by others in the organization.
If these documents are not disclosed or mispronounced, it costs you twice:
* Initial costs (referring to any poor user document) to answer user queries (technical support).
* The second cost comes from the lost time of your employees trying to understand a bad User Document.
Mental costs also affect the external and internal users.
EARLY COSTS: TECHNICAL SUPPORT
These are the costs you incur whenever you produce Poor User Documents (or not). It comes from any user when they need technical support. For external users, costs by your technical support staff, toll-free calls, etc.
For internal users, the cost is the amount of time an engineer or tool translator spends to answer a co-worker's questions. This costs the cost of technical support… these people are often paid more than your technical staff. So this initial cost is much higher for poor indoor documentation than for bad paper issued to the public.
SECOND COSTS: TIME AND SERVICE OF USERS
For users outside of your company, secondary costs are incurred by the users themselves or their employers. These confused Users use their company time: lost time to try to make the product work, and time wasted to deal with your technical support.
Your employee - at your own time-wasting your company's resources trying to use an arcane product or document. This is where your missing home documents cost you twice. For your internal users, this cost is borne by your company.
PSYCHOLOGICAL COSTS AFFECT ALL STUDENTS
In addition to these time and financial costs, psychological costs are marred by bad user records.
Your poor documentation leads to misconceptions about your company and its products for frustrated users outside your company. This can lead to business losses.
For users within your company, psychological costs reduce employee morale, as evidenced by these possible statements:
* Did our company produce this garbage?
* These people are not as sharp as I thought they were.
* If other employees can produce this confusing thing, then I can work at the same level.
So the will outside your company can cost you a future sale; malpractice within your company can be costly.
SOLUTION: INFORMAL REVIEW
When someone writes a User Document for an in-house tool, that document should be updated randomly.
RECREATION
The author may make the first review alone.
Use your spelling spell checker to correct common errors. You can use the processor grammar checker. However, most of them are inaccurate.
Before performing this review, allow the document to last a day or two. This will help you to forget what you meant in your obscure writing. When you do a review and find yourself asking, "what did I mean here?" you will have found a place in the document that needs to be updated.
When doing a review, consider yourself a user of the tool and a reader of the document. Think about the tasks the tool user wants to perform. Does this text enable the Learner to get what they need? Is the writing accurate (well-defined tool), clear, and complete? Make changes that will improve the document.
EXTERNAL REVIEW
Then, if possible, use an external update (within your company). To do this, the author must:
1. Find a tool user. This should be someone unfamiliar with the tool and be like the target audience of a sensible tool.
2. Have the reviewer use the document to guide him in using the tool. Ask for comments in writing. Note the suggested changes, additions, deletions, specifications requested by the reviewer. Some questions to ask might include:
* Does this document tell you what you need to know?
* Is it easy to find what you need in a document?
* Does this text answer your questions? If not, what questions can be answered?
* Is it easy to follow this text? If not, where are the problem areas?
3. The author should make adjustments where necessary.
If you can't do this "similar" review, get someone other than you to read the text and make suggestions for improvement.
Make sure the review process is not a hindrance to those who write Internal User Documents. Press the collaborative process - not against the consequences of quality work. Do not attempt to create a complete User Document.
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