Can’t Someone Tell Me How to Measure Quality?
http://www.stc.org/confproceed/1998/PDFs/00028.PDF

Fisher, Lori H.
STC Proceedings
1998

Abstract:

Technical communication journals and conferences over the past decade have consistently covered the topic of quality, but much of this coverage has focused on defining quality in technical communication and describing models of quality for our field. Few have dared to declare a finite set of definitive metrics that could be used across our profession. This paper takes the bold (and yes, foolhardy) step of declaring a set of metrics that could be used universally to measure quality in technical documentation of commercial products. The author is fully aware that this will stir up controversy and dissent, but considers this her contribution to stimulating discussion of the area of specific quality metrics.