RE: [dita] FW: Feedback for Survey

Title: Message

Yes. Thank you, Su-Laine.

 

The Introduction section of the spec, and the 
introduction to the Arch Spec ("The architectural specification provides information 
about ...") 
and the Lang Ref ("The 
language reference provides information about ...") would each have well benefited 
from a brief audience statement to this effect, preferably with references to 
one or more products of the Adoption TC. 

 

Lacking that, it's left to the Adoption TC and others 
to communicate that the spec requires some prior expertise and is not meant to 
be a user guide.

  
/B

  

  
  From: Su-Laine Yeo 
  [mailto:] 
Sent: Friday, December 17, 
  2010 5:50 PM
To: DITA TC
Subject: RE: [dita] FW: Feedback 
  for Survey

  

  

  
Hi 
  everyone,

  
 

  
I 
  am still not clear on what the goals are either for this survey, or of the 
  repackaging effort in general. Do we have a clear statement of what problem(s) 
  we are trying to solve via repackaging? 

  
 

  
If 
  the problem is that the readers in the intended audience often can't find the 
  information that they are looking for, repackaging may or may not be part of 
  the solution. We should be looking at issues such as whether headings use the 
  terms that readers are looking for, whether the organization of the document 
  is meaningful, whether the index uses terms readers are looking for, and 
  whether more powerful search capabilities would help. 
   

  
 

  
If 
  the problem is that the readers in the intended audience often can't find the 
  information that they are looking for, surveys are of limited use in providing 
  the kind of data we would need in order to solve the problem. We'd need to do 
  something more along the lines of card sorting 
  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card_sorting).

  
 

  
I'll 
  state a few assumptions about audiences just to make sure we're all working 
  from the same set of assumptions: If I recall correctly, we decided some time 
  ago that the intended audience of the DITA specification is developers of DITA 
  tools, not end-users or managers. I think we should have a goal of having the 
  spec, or at least the language reference portion of the spec, be 
  understandable to information architects who have a good grasp of XML. 
  

  
 

  
We 
  don't want the spec to be unnecessarily abstruse, but I think we also 
  recognize that no matter how much we improve the writing and organization of 
  the DITA spec, it  won't be understandable to non-technical end-users, 
  translators, or managers. People who don't have a pretty deep grasp of what 
  XML is just aren't going to get it. So let's make sure that when we're asking 
  people if they understand the spec, we're only asking the type of people who 
  are technical enough to understand this type of spec. Otherwise the results 
  won't be meaningful.

  
 

  
Cheers,

  
Su-Laine

  
 

  
 

  
Su-Laine 
  Yeo
Solutions 
  Consultant 

  
JustSystems 
  Canada, Inc.
Office: 
  1 (778) 327-6356 


  
 

  
XMetaL 
  Community Forums: 
  http://forums.xmetal.com

  
For 
  partners only: 
  http://www.justpartnercenter.com

  
 

  
 

  
 

  
 

  
 

  
    
-----Original 
    Message-----
From: Joann Hackos 
    [mailto:] 
Sent: Tuesday, December 
    14, 2010 10:04 AM
To: DITA TC
Subject: [dita] FW: 
    Feedback for Survey

    

------ 
    Forwarded Message
From: Lovonya Thomas <>
Date: 
    Mon, 6 Dec 2010 09:37:57 -0700
To: <>
Cc: 
    JoAnn Hackos <>
Subject: 
    RE: Feedback for Survey

Hello 
    Thilo,
JoAnn Hackos asked me to send you a draft of the survey with the 
    updates. Below is a link to the preview page of the survey. 
    

http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/WEB22BFUN323SP/Preview

Please let me know if you have any 
    questions.
Best wishes,
Lovonya
Lovonya Thomas
Events Coordinator
Comtech 
    Services
1-303-232-7586
 <mailto:> 
    
www.comtech-serv.com <http://www.comtech-serv.com/> 
    
www.infomanagementcenter.com <http://www.infomanagementcenter.com/> 
      

------ 
    Forwarded Message
From: "Buchholz, Thilo" <>
Date: 
    Mon, 29 Nov 2010 16:46:46 +0100
To: JoAnn Hackos <>
Subject: 
    Feedback for Survey

Hello JoAnn,
 
Here is the 
    collected feedback I remember:
 

    
      
Please remove 
      demographic questions and replace with an optional  field to insert 
      the eMail in case the person answering the survey wants to be contacted 
      
      
Please add 
      additional Industries, on the word we had, you can add additional 
      industries: 
      
pharmaceutical 
      
      
semiconductor 
      
      
public 
      services 
      
software 
      
      
manufacture 
      
      
banking 
      
      
computer 
      hardware 
      
military 
      
      
medical 
      equipment 
      
health care 
      
      
I think there 
      was also a proposal to have a matrix type question that allows to specify 
      the use case per DITA 1.2 chapter.

    

That is all 
    I have noted.
 
BR Thilo
 
Dr. 
    Thilo Buchholz 
    
Head 
    of Production Platform Management & Operations 
    
Knowledge 
    Productization Services
SAP AG 
       
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