xml-dev - Re: Improved writing -- who's going to pay for it?

[Miloslav Nic <nicmila@idoox.com>]

Linda van den Brink wrote:
> 
> >
> > Is it therefore not sensible to do
> > "usability testing" (involving real users)
> > on documents?
> >
> 
> Do you have an idea of how to go about it? Could the research and testing be
> entirely carried out through this list? How would you get your sample of
> users? (I could  be one, since I haven't read the Schema spec yet and am a
> potential user).
> 
> Linda


What about this: 
we can create a group of interested people.
We will each provide a short curriculum about our background and 
state of our experience with the spec. 
We should probably assume that everybody read through the primer
and understands the real basics as how to declare an element.

Then we can ask each other questions.

Group members would respond to the question:
if they know the answer they will just try to
find it in the standard (a very common situation,
you are almost sure  but not entirely so you will
look it out)
the others will try to find the answer and 
they will respond with it (and give time it took them 
to accomplish the task) or they will respond I tried for
5 minutes and no success.

And of course everybody can write comments.

This system needs:
there must be standard writers in the group which would give
the right solution
there must be reasonable software backend somake the comparisons
and contributions easy (therefore there must be a person who would
provide
software support)

Advantages for W3C:
usability testings, FAQ's generation, better public relations

For W3C outsiders:
thorough understanding of the specification, realization that others are
as stupid as themselves ;)


I guess the system is workable but only if there is a really good
background support.
Just a devoted mailing list is not good enough. 

-- 
******************************************
<firstName> Miloslav </firstName>    
<surname>   Nic      </surname>     

<mail>    nicmila@idoox.com    </mail>   
<support> http://www.zvon.org  </support>
<zvonMailingList> 
    http://www.zvon.org/index.php?nav_id=4 
</zvonMailingList>