International Organization for Standardization

Systems and software engineering - Requirements for testers and reviewers of user documentation - First Edition
 N ISO/IEC 26513

Annotation

This International Standard supports the interest of software users in receiving consistent, complete, accurate, and usable documentation. This International Standard defines the process in which user documentation products are tested.

This International Standard is intended neither to encourage nor discourage the use of either printed or electronic (on-screen) media for documentation, or of any particular documentation testing or management tools or methodologies.

This International Standard specifies processes for use in testing and reviewing of user documentation (Clause 5). It is not limited to the test and review phase of the life cycle, but includes activities throughout the Information Management and Documentation Management processes.

This International Standard provides the minimum requirements for the testing and reviewing of user documentation (Clause 6), including both printed and on-screen documents used in the work environment by the users of systems software. It applies to printed user manuals, online help, tutorials, and user reference documentation.

The order of clauses in this International Standard does not imply that the software user documentation should be tested in this order.

In each clause, the requirements are media-independent, as far as possible. The informative checklists found in Annexes A and B may be used at each phase of the documentation process to verify that the appropriate steps have been carried out, and that the finished product has acceptable quality.

This International Standard can be helpful for testing and reviewing the following types of documentation: