The Good, the Bad, and the Slick

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Duke Ellington said, "There's only two kinds of music: good and bad." It's a witty line, and he said it with more humor than I could ever write it. In documentation, there is a third dimension called Slick. Slick is a measure of the brill and shine used to present information. Online, it's the colors, the animation, the sound effects, the 3D buttons, and the rest of the user interface. On paper, it's the artwork, the layout, the dots per inch, the paper weight, and the binding method.

During the 1993 online documentation competition, the judges determined to separate authors from their tools and to ignore the limitations or advantages of the technologies. The goal was to evaluate the contribution of the writer. However, the judges did not draw their lines clearly, and the result of the competition reflects the ambiguity. The winning entries are superb in all respects, but they also contain high levels of Slick. Were the judges influenced favorably or unfavorable based on the amount of Slick in an entry?

In the future, competition committees must articulate their criteria and identity the tools and processes for each entry. What does the author do? Who else is involved? What effect does the technology have?

Perhaps more detailed application forms for competitions would help. This way, judges can debate the issues:

• What is the bird's-eye view of the author's writing and production process? Does the author have abundant resources? Or does the author's employer work in a converted garage? Should authors in these environments be weighted equally?
• How large is the audience for the documentation? Most small companies have small volumes. Should they be punished for photocopied books and GBC bindings?
• Which processes are controlled by the author? Is the author also the artist, the software engineer, the page layout designer, and the production manager? Or is the author a specialized writer who hands work to other specialists for high-quality production?

After reviewing applications, judges can build decision matrices and decide who (or what) to reward: the author, the team, the technology, or the quantity of resources devoted to the entry.

Judging committees must clarify the nebulous boundary between author, support staff, and technology. Entries should not win solely because they offer the best technology that time and money can buy.