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You're Invited! Visual Studio SDK Documentation Survey

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My team, Visual Studio SDK User Education team, participated in a recent customer event on the Microsoft campus. One of the things we did was to present event attendees with the following survey. If you use the Visual Studio SDK, I'd appreciate 10 minutes or less of your time to answer the following seven questions. Just use the Comments link on the Web site where this blog post is located, in order to deliver your response to me. Our team is dedicated to improving the Visual Studio SDK documentation to meet customers' needs, and this is your opportunity to tell us how to help you find the information you need when you need it.

#1. The Visual Studio SDK documentation featured Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) pages for the first time in the August 2006 CTP release. For FAQ pages, what would you prefer in terms of Table of Contents organization?

a. Each FAQ page should be as close as possible to its corresponding feature area. For example, the VSPackages FAQ page should be in the same Table of Contents node as all of the VSPackages documentation.
b. All of the FAQ pages should be grouped together into a single FAQ node in the Table of Contents. For example the VSPackages FAQ page should be in a single FAQ node along with all of the other FAQ pages.
c. I have no preference.

#2. Have you read any of these new FAQ pages yet?

a. Yes
b. No

#3. If you responded "Yes" (a.) to the previous question, what do like or dislike about these FAQ pages? 

#4. Would you prefer end-to-end “walkthroughs,” or would you prefer tutorials, to help you learn more about new or unfamiliar technology areas and product features? (Note that producing tutorials takes more time than producing walkthroughs.)

a. I prefer end-to-end walkthroughs – just describe the specific steps I need to get familiar with a technology area, use a feature, or complete a set of tasks. I find additional information in this context to be distracting.
b. I prefer end-to-end tutorials – I’m interested in reading more commentary or taking additional time to venture into related documentation to get familiar with a technology area, use a feature, or complete a set of tasks.
c. I have no preference.

#5. If we were to create tutorials based on the IronPython integration sample, which of the following *three* areas should we focus on?

a. MSBuild tasks
b. Projects
c. Language service
d. Console window
e. Windows Forms designer
f. Web site projects
g. Web application projects
h. Installation
i. All of the above
j. None of the above

#6. If you answered "none of the above" (j.) to the previous question, please choose the options that best explain why.

a. I don't like tutorials.
b. I don't think most people doing Visual Studio integration would like tutorials.
c. IronPython is too big a sample.
d. IronPython is too different from my language to be useful.
e. I need API reference more than tutorials.
f. I need how-to material more than tutorials.

#7. If you were allowed to have Microsoft change just *one* thing in the Visual Studio SDK documentation, what would it be?

-- Paul

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This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    September 06, 2006
    Rob Caron on TF30331: Failure to Connect to Team Foundation Server and Fishing for Answers to Team System...
  • Anonymous
    September 13, 2006
    I'll see if I can get the ball rolling:

    #1: a & b
    #2: yes
    #3: The basic format is good; but there doesn't seem to be much content, making it hard to really comment.  What is there is useful; but I can't comment on the breadth of the FAQ topics.

    #4: a & b: I find that end-to-end walkthroughs are easier to validate and maintain.  I also find them quicker to get up and running.  But, I wouldn't completely dismiss tutorials.  Ideally both should be included.

    #5: a,b,c

    #6: Although I entered a,b,c for #5, I think it's important to respond that an integration sample should be end-to-end, integrating with all aspects of Visual Studio.

    #7: Other than what I've said above, I don't feel I'm familiar enough with the SDK docs to provide a pertinent answer to this question.