A Metrics-Based Approach to Technical Documentation Quality

• Technical documentation is now fully taking the step from stale printedbooklets (or electronic versions of these) to interactive and online versions.This provides opportunities to reconsider how we define and assess the qualityof technical documentation. This paper suggests an approach based on theGoal-Question-Metric paradigm: predefined quality goals are continuously assessedand visualized by the use of metrics. To test this approach, we performtwo experiments. We adopt well known software analysistechniques, e.g., clone detection and test coverage analysis, and assess thequality of two real world documentations, that of a mobile phone and of(parts of) a warship. The experiments show that quality issues can be identifiedand that the approach is promising.Technical documentation is now fully taking the step from stale printedbooklets (or electronic versions of these) to interactive and online versions.This provides opportunities to reconsider how we define and assess the qualityof technical documentation. This paper suggests an approach based on the Goal-Question-Metric paradigm: predefined quality goals are continuously assessedand visualized by the use of metrics. To test this approach, we performtwo experiments. We adopt well known software analysistechniques, e.g., clone detection and test coverage analysis, and assess thequality of two real world documentations, that of a mobile phone and of(parts of) a warship. The experiments show that quality issues can be identifiedand that the approach is promising.

Ämnesord

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Data- och informationsvetenskap -- Programvaruteknik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Computer and Information Sciences -- Software Engineering (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Information quality

Quality assurance

Software metrics

Documentation

Software engineering

Programvaruteknik

Computer Science

Datavetenskap

Publikations- och innehållstyp

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