Beyond Accuracy: What Documentation Quality Means to Readers

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to propose a preliminary, focused, clearly defined, and reader-oriented model for collecting meaningful and actionable feedback to improve documentation quality and increase reader satisfaction. This model is based on a narrow yet comprehensive set of 15 distinct information quality dimensions (based on previous research by Wang and Strong, 1996) that cover all categories of information quality – Intrinsic, Contextual, Representational, and Accessibility (ICRA). Research was done to determine which information quality dimensions readers rated as most important per category (as they related to documentation), which were then used to create a clear, comprehensive, and empirically based definition of documentation quality from the readers' point of view. This definition of documentation quality is the heart of the model and provides a strong basis for measuring what readers want from the documentation we send them.
Methods: Questionnaires were sent to readers, asking them to rate Wang & Strong's information quality dimensions in terms of importance as they applied to documentation. Dimensions were sorted by information quality category, and the most important dimension per category (as determined by weighted average) was calculated.
Results: According to readers, the following four information quality dimensions are the most important per ICRA category for documentation: Accurate, Relevant, Easy to Understand, and Accessible (AREA).
Conclusions: We can use the AREA information quality dimensions to create a preliminary, focused, clearly defined, and reader-oriented model for collecting meaningful and actionable feedback that will improve documentation quality and increase reader satisfaction.