> I know it seems silly but that's why I've been advocating for getting those little "was this page helpful?" links at the bottom of pages, followed by an opportunity to provide freeform feedback.
Whilst this is great, I think most people perceive documentation differently. Rarely does documentation delight me in the sense that I'd leave feedback. Generally, my interaction with documentation is one of "It works as expected"; "pretty bad but I still managed"; or "bad, didn't help, or didn't exist".
The thing that has the most effect on my is the last one. That is what will get me to drop a system. The first one "it works as expected" comes with a little but of surprise and delight. But, perhaps paradoxically, even though it surprises me, it still only meets my expectation. With a 'was this helpful' prompt, I'd need to click "it was helpful" on every successful search of documentation I ever do. This seems still too unremarkable for me to explicitly mention it was helpful.
Yup I know it's a tall order / unrealistic but I'm just trying to provide context as to why documentation might be systematically underfunded (lack of causal chain proving its value). Your response is totally understandable but it also demonstrates why the situation probably won't change any time soon.
establishing a DSAT metric is still powerful. Lifting a key feedback metric from "this is bullshit" to "this is ok" is something you can sell management on
Whilst this is great, I think most people perceive documentation differently. Rarely does documentation delight me in the sense that I'd leave feedback. Generally, my interaction with documentation is one of "It works as expected"; "pretty bad but I still managed"; or "bad, didn't help, or didn't exist".
The thing that has the most effect on my is the last one. That is what will get me to drop a system. The first one "it works as expected" comes with a little but of surprise and delight. But, perhaps paradoxically, even though it surprises me, it still only meets my expectation. With a 'was this helpful' prompt, I'd need to click "it was helpful" on every successful search of documentation I ever do. This seems still too unremarkable for me to explicitly mention it was helpful.