The Pursuit of 'Good' Documents

How Well Do Your Documents Communicate?

The documents you produce, whether it's a simple napkin sketch or a fully detailed digital model, are the conduit for how your design is communicated and ultimately constructed. 

Even though there's a lot of emphasis on going "paperless", but I don't hear much talk about being "documentless"!

According to wikipedia, a document is "a written, drawn, presented, or memorialized representation of thought, often the manifestation of non-fictional, as well as fictional, content." This post primarily deals with drawing documents, but the principles would apply to pretty much any document.

Defining "Good"

I like to start this session by asking "What is something you see on a drawing that causes you to question the trustworthiness of the whole set of drawings?" 

Some common answers are:

• "I notice dimensional errors or other inaccuracies."

• "There are spelling errors."

• "Certain geometry doesn't line up properly."

• The drawings are cluttered, messy or poorly organized."

• Important information is missing or misplaced."

These issues can be grouped into two categories: 

• Technical - relating to the overall correctness and accuracy of the documents.

• Visual -  relating to the legibility, readability, and overall look of the documents.

Identifying What's "Not Good"

In my past role as a CAD Manager, designers would occasionally come to me with complaints about the drawings they were working on. Rarely were they complaining about the "technical" element of the drawing. Usually, they (the designers) were more knowledgeable in regards to the technical nature of what they were drawing. 

At other times, they would complain about the "visual" element, either due to poor lineweights or layers that should (or shouldn't) be visible on certain drawings. 

More often though, the complaints were focused on something entirely different. If the drawings were accurate (technical) and legible (visual), what else could there be that was causing an issue? Apparently there was something overlooked in our definition of what constituted a "good" document. How could a drawing that looks good and is accurately drawn still be "not good"?

The answer lies in the complaints themselves. They were things like:

• "I have to explode this block to get it to look right."

• "This layer shouldn't appear on this sheet."

• "This dynamic block is not working correctly."

• "Why does it take so long to plot these drawings?"

Non of these complaints had anyhing to do with the accuracy (technical) or legibility (visual) of the drawing. They were related to something else entirely.

Invisible Issues

Let's take a detour for a second and look at how drawings are "reviewed" by QC/QA staff. Typically, before issuing drawings for manufacturing or construction, they are reviewed by an experienced, senior staff member. The document they reviewed is usually a paper plot or a PDF.  This review is typically performed by "looking" at the drawing, even if it's done electronically using a PDF viewer. In most cases, a visual review will not expose issues like the ones mentioned above. A paper or PDF drawing can hide a multitude of issues that escape the eye of even the most experienced reviewer! 

So, when defining "good" documents, it needs something more than just accuracy and legibility.

Document DNA

There are three distinct elements required to make up a document, whether it's a Word document, a 3D model, a Powerpoint presentation or a CAD file. I refer to these  as "Document DNA".