Explaining the standards rationale

Read a blog entry this morning (Bill) talking about the lack of explanation as to why something is as is it in Atom. When I first entered the world of XML I felt really aggrieved that W3C and ISO didn't write standards (recs) with a user in mind. I eventually came to understand that the spec is written with the implementor in mind (or should be). That leaves the user out in the cold until someone explains the standard by writing the book, explaining it on a website or some such. Back to Bills point though. If I read the standard (or a book about it) and neither the author or I were around at the time it was developed, then how are we supposed to understand the rationale for there being three dates in atom? Likely we'll shrug our shoulders, ignore two of them and use our own judgement. Equally likely, if we understood the rationale and the users of the feature we find so puzzling, then we'd more than likely go along with the need and support the standard in a better (more understanding) way. That's my logic.

Yet standards organizations really are not customer focussed, when you read users as being customers. They seem not to see any need to care about the customers.

NVDL is a good example. I see it as largely mathematically specified. Clearly written for an implementor? Possibly. For a user? I find it really quite daunting to read.

Two points come to mind. If users and implementors are to understand why something is as it is in a standard, then the authors need to explain the rationale to some level.

If users are to utilize the standard as intended by the authors, then they need some form of guidance. I'm quite sure that many, if not most, standards can be abused in some way. Certainly interpreted in a way the authors never thought of. A user view of some sort would help though I find it quite hard to say just what manner of user guide would be best suited to such a purpose.

Another good example. Of an explanatory document. Jim Fuller has clearly been following xproc and published this quite excellent summary and introduction to xproc. Informative and almost a sales pitch, it contains enough to show you what the standard is all about and perhaps motivate you (it did me) to go take a look. More pieces like this and standards uptake would increase I feel sure. This could form the basis for the 'other' document that W3C should publish for users of W3C standards.