Usability Testing of Your Documentation
Yea, it is possible. Let's say you have created a user-guide. The user-guide is aimed at helping users in performing various tasks on the product.
- Choose a representative user (anyone, even your mother-in-law is all right). If you can't recruit a user read List-item:
- Ask the user to perform tasks on the product using the instructions from the guide
- Ask the user to Think Aloud, but don't interrupt or help the user in performing tasks
- Make notes. Note the reactions of the user. That frown. That click of the tongue indicating frustration. People are nice; they wont tell you to your face 'Your guide sucks.' It is our duty to find out what they think
- Make a list of your findings; identify action points; compile a report, and go to work on the guide
- Once you have incorporated changes/enhancements to your guide, test it again on the user and make sure that your enhancements have made the guide usable
- If you can't recruit users, you and your other technical writer can review the guide (individually) against a heuristics check-list. The check-list is intended for a software application but you can use it for your guide as well, if you know what to keep and what to throw away (discretion my lord!)
Disclaimer: If you thought this idea of testing is stupid, please tell me, I am just thinking aloud and sharing the thought with you; maybe you and I can discover a method that would be world renowned, who knows!
write to me: Suman@sumankumar.com