Contingency design does not figure much in conversations amongst technical communicators. In these conversations, the emphasis is usually on the almighty manual. However, oftentimes, customers read error messages before they even think of opening a product's manual. In this presentation, Suman Kumar introduces the key area of contingency design and answers questions like 'How do we design for contingencies?', 'Can you use error messages to boost customer experience and loyalty?', and 'How does effective contingency design help in reducing support costs?'Read more on the STC Website.
Another interesting paper is by Rachna and Shilpa of Cadence: Test plans as a source of improving documentation quality.
Sweet.
Write to me: Sumank[at]gmail[dot]com