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Is anyone aware of a Customer Survey that returns valuable information
about the effectiveness and usefulness of product documentation (Install
Guides, User Manuals, on-line help and documentation), that does not
involve the presence of the writer?
I may be biased but...
My impression is that forms that are included with documentation
don't get returned, even if postage is provided.
My impression is that forms that are given to Sales people don't
get used on the right customer personnel (i.e., the sales rep talks
to executives or to somebody in purchasing, and not to the engineers
or techs who might have actually used our product in the field).
My impression is that forms that are given to Customer Support are
not enjoyed by customers who just want a problem fixed and please
stop bugging me with your questions about documents, I'm in a hurry!!
My impression is that "Comment About our User Documentation" forms
on the company web-site don't return a lot of valuable info.
If there is no budget (of money or time) for the writer to track
down actual customer users of the product, to ask them about
their experience with his/her magnificent documents, then what
method is used by those of you who experience worthwhile results
from whatever kind of customer surveys you do?
I've been Googling on the topic, but all I've seen so far have
been various companies' "Please, please, please talk to us" web
survey forms, and some sites that want to sell seminars about
surveying customers... or services to outsource the surveying.
Not a lot of hits on how small companies survey their product
end-users without big budgets and without incentives to offer
other than "the docs'll be better next time; no I don't have any
give-away toys for you".
/kevin (who has been ambushed by Hackos accolytes and needs to fill
in something in the "Testing" and "Evaluation" sections of
his vast and impressive new planning and process document)
(not to be distinguished from /kevin who is a lone writer...)
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