Dr Cecile Paris from CSIRO Mathematical and Information Sciences was commissioned by the US Office of Naval Research to create a system that tightly linked documentation with system development. Paris told ZDNet Australia she used language technology on how to produce text in human languages, and how people interact with machines to create some simple and direct instructions in how to do a task.
"We don't aim to replace writers. Technical writing is a complex task best done by humans," said Paris. "However, generating instruction sets that are tightly linked to product functionality is one component of technical writing that can be tedious and sometimes error-prone."
"Our aim is to automate this part of the process with supporting tools so writers can concentrate on more challenging requirements such as product features, context and applications."
The program allows changes in one part of the document to be propagated throughout the rest of the manual automatically. Traditionally, if a step is added to a process any reference to that process had to be adjusted by hand.
"If there are going to be a lot of changes to something which will require a lot of changes to the manuals, it will be useful," said Paris. The software models tasks so they can be broken down into their component steps, and can capture these models from specifications interaction diagrams, text based scenarios or live-user interaction recording.
The other aspect is translating the task models into text comprehensible by humans. In this regard, the CSIRO has tested the effectivness of text generated by their program against text written by a human.
"We were able to show people were as effective at a task given our text, and in some cases with really complex tasks they were more effective," said Paris, adding this was because the software often wrote the text more simply than humans. "It is important to always use the same name for the same concept, and this is hard for humans because we hate writing the same word over and over."
The program also makes it easier to translate manuals into other human languages, and other program languages on different delivery mechanisms.
The CSIRO hopes to find an industry partner to commercialise the current prototype.
