FW: [dita] Audience of the arch spec

[Troy Klukewich <troy.klukewich@oracle.com>]

Title: Audience of the arch spec

I can't pass up a compliment from JoAnn Hackos:

<quote>
Read the Learning and Training arch spec. It’s actually in plain language and speaks to the user community.
</quote>

Kudos to the authors.

Troy Klukewich
Information Architect
Oracle

---

From Joann Hackos <joann.hackos@comtech-serv.com>

Sent Thu 10/1/2009 7:59 AM

To DITA TC <dita@lists.oasis-open.org>

Subject [dita] Audience of the arch spec

Hi All,
I continue to be concerned about our definition of the audience of the arch spec. We seem to have two camps: the XML geeks and the user community advocates. Certainly, the Adoption TC needs to direct explanations to the user community, but does the arch spec need to be so completely obtuse? 

In fact, it is quite schizophrenic. Read the Learning and Training arch spec. It’s actually in plain language and speaks to the user community. Compare that with some of the other sections, which should communicate to a broad audience. Each section of the arch spec should have a user-friendly introductory explanation of the feature (at least). 

It seems that we are getting to sound more and more like software developers who insist that the users know what wonderful, magical work they did in creating the software. Makes the documentation unusable.

Just ranting, of course.
JOAnn