Paper Killer
he biggest railway crash in Britain would have occurred in Woking. It would have been
caused by a failure to check a document. The document was a work instruction to an
operator to undo some bolts on a non-operational structure beside the railway track
preparatory to removing it.
Unfortunately whoever prepared the note failed to indicate the correct bolts.
Fortunately the operator on having removed two bolts felt a certain movement through his
boots. It was it seems only at this moment that he realized that the bolts held a very large signal
gantry in place. This signal gantry was operative and spanned the main London-to-Portsmouth
railway line. A lot of trains use that line every minute.
The operator checked his document, replaced and tightened the bolts, and went to see his
supervisor.
T
System and Acceptance Testing 269
Very few people read for pleasure and or have a reading age greater than sixteen. Thus it is unlikely that
an average user will access any document more than is absolutely necessary. It is even less likely that any
UTC will comment on the usefulness of the documents. Documents must therefore be seen as:
??? Essential pre-requisites to starting up the system (a get-you-started guide)
??? An adjunct to the help system during the usability tests
The best that can be hoped for from a document test is either that users will comment that they are
trying to find out how to do X (and can??™t) or that the information is there, but in the ???wrong??? place.
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