Question: How easily can users and contributors find the information they are looking for in a project’s documentation?
Documentation discoverability is critical due to the role it plays in open source project’s inclusivity. If people cannot find and then easily navigate through the body of documentation, or find the answers they seek, they are less likely to use or contribute to the project thus decreasing the project ability to attract a diverse set of contributors. Documentation discoverability has the goal to ensure searchability and visibility as well as improve inclusivity across a diverse audience.
The Documentation Discoverability metric is meant to support documentation:
- Visibility: Documentation is easy to find and reference.
- Searchability: Documentation can easily be navigated by users based on their ability, and they can find the relevant information they need through search.
- Method of Discovery: Identification of the ways in which people find the documentation
- Inclusivity: Knowledge is shared more equitably among project contributors, and new contributors can more easily participate.
Survey project members:
Likert scale [easy to find - impossible to find] regarding the discoverability of documentation such as:
- Mailing list archived communication
- Mailing list membership management
- Chat channel archived communication
- Performing code reviews
- Process of getting code accepted
- Code of conduct
- Onboarding newcomers
- Licensing, trademark
- Project leadership
- Project releases
- Voting process
Multiple-choice checkbox: How do you discover project documentation?
- Website
- Repositories
- Documentation within the software
- Search engine
- Other
Multiple choice: Did you experience any challenges related to the discoverability of documentation when you started to participate in the project (e.g., language barriers, or structure of documentation)? Answer options:
- No challenges
- A few challenges
- Several challenges
- Many challenges