Is S1000D becoming too complicated? - (2)

In an earlier Blog I rasied the question of whether or not the S1000D Specification is becoming too complicated. I raised the question because of the big increase in Data Module/Management Module types in the recent Issues of the Specification and the shear size of the book.

I also raised the question because of my contact with newcomers to the Specification being totally at sea. Being told that they must work to S1000D means that they go and get the specification and then, as one person put it to me, "it was like hitting a brick wall". There was so much there, and apparently so much impenetrable documentation they could not see "the wood for the trees".

As I indicated in my response to one of the comments left with the last Blog Post, there have been comments over the time about providing an S1000D Lite version of the specification. If I remember rightly this first raised it head around about the time when Issue 1 Change 9 was published and that only had 1.3kpages and six or so major DM types.

Time for Rethink?

The specification has reached epic proportions regarding the number of pages. Personally the actual number of pages does not bother me. I guess that like me lots of you have had to deal with documents considerably larger. But the specification has grown in what seems to be an almost haphazard way over the years and perhaps the time has come to have a wholesale rethink about its structure, i.e. where the information is located.

We are into ‘bloatware’ – rather like the software industry. Each new version of the operating system requires even faster machines with even more memory, with even more storage available and with an even more complex interface. Well us oldies (in S1000D terms) are not too phased by what we see but just put yourselves in the situation of that person coming to this new.

Where do they Start?

Being faced with 2.7k+ pages and not knowing where to start puts the Specification in a bad light.
Has any work been done on how a new person wishes to access the fantastic functionality of the basic S1000D specification? What do they need to know when they first open (not literally of course) the specification? From what I have been told these people need:

• a very simple introduction to the basic principles of S1000D,
• the idea of small chunks of information which are unique and
• how they can all be brought together
• to give the end user of the Technical Documentation a coherent unambiguous and easy to read set of instructions
• for doing a piece of work on an item of equipment.

Easy isn't it? I wish! There is a plan to produce an Implementation Guide which I am sure will be gladly received.

To be honest, the specification has almost reached the impenetrable status of ISpec 2200 which I personally always had great difficulty navigatingh my way around.

The S1000D Specification does have one big advantage. It is in PDF form - a format very familiar to most of us making it very easy to navigate around. However, as an aside, I notice that some of the things that I want to search for do not show although later I do find the phrase that I was looking for (on one line even) so perhaps there is a problem with Acrobat or how the PDF was created?

Can we not stand back, set up a small group to really think about the current structure of the Specification publication, move it to a radically simpler structure? I am sure all the new users would thank the S1000D committees for this. Getting familiar with S1000D would be much easier and less hassle.

This Blog

As always I post these Blogs to provide a forum for discussion about the S1000D specification. Those who know me, or who have met me, know that I am a great believer in the S1000D specification and have been from very early days having been very actively involved in it since Issue 1 Change 6. I was involved in Technical Authoring for more years than I care to remember on large and small projects and immediately saw the huge advantages to working with S1000D. All I will admit is that I do get exasperated from time to time with the way the Specification appears to be developing and how far it appears to be getting removed from projects handled by us mere mortals.