A Proposal for Examining and Improving the Currency and Relevance of Support Document

A Proposal for Examining and Improving the Currency and Relevance of Support Documentation

Introduction

Because the extensions are constantly being updated and improved upon, it occasionally happens that new users working through the support tutorials and documentation come upon references that are no longer applicable to their new product, either in the methodology as described, or in referring to assets which no longer exist, or do not match exactly the assets that do exist.

While this is not usually a problem to users who are updating from an older version of a product, or to people with general experience in the area or PHP, HTML, CSS and Testing Server Environments, it can often be a complete block to people who have little or no such experience in one or more of those areas, and who, as a consequence, are working through the support files both rigorously and methodically, and who require a literal correlation between the information in the guides, and the resources that these guides refer to. Many examples of the need for this literal correlation can be seen throughout the forum, i.e. - the exact database tables referred to in a User Guide may not always exist in the Support Files; although a more experienced user will understand how a different database file could be implemented instead, a novice will not, and become stuck.

Proposal

A completel review of the supporting resources for each extension.

Method

Each extension to be assigned to a different WebAssist Personnel member. That WA staff member should find two people - perhaps from his friends and acquaintances - each of whom should be provided with a copy of the latest extension and the corresponding support material and the means to test them out. One of these two people should have design experience in HTML and CSS only, the other should perhaps have some limited experience in basic PHP and MySql implementation. They would then be asked to work through the support material following the exact procedures as layed out in the documentation, and making a note of problems, inconsistencies, ambiguities and outright mistakes that they encounter along the way. They should be asked to do this without reference to forums. This information should be fed back to the WA Staff member who will then have a clearer idea from two perspectives of what needs updating, correcting or clarifying in the materials and tutorials.

An alternative method would be for WebAssist to donate a couple of copies of WebAssist SuperSuite to local Colleges in return for testing the support materials and reporting back the problems, as above.

The process of testing should NOT be carried out directly by WebAssist personnel.