What Good Numbers Look Like
After a full series spent dismantling weak metrics, the constructive question deserves its own chapter: what does honest performance documentation actually look like? The answer exists in the published record, and it has a recognizable shape.
Honest documentation pairs its numbers. TSER appears beside VLT on every product, because each is incomplete without the other. The best published example of a coherent automotive line traces exactly the pattern the physics predicts — TSER climbing steadily as VLT falls, from the mid-30s at near-clear shades to the low 60s at dark shades — every tier's numbers moving together logically.
Honest documentation discloses methodology. Where IRR appears, its wavelength range appears beside it, stated plainly. Where IRER appears — full-band, energy-based, with re-radiated absorption charged, per its published definition — the brand is voluntarily answering the harder question. A manufacturer printing IRR and TSER side by side on one sheet is handing readers the exact comparison this catalog teaches; that transparency is the behavior worth rewarding with business.
Honest documentation scales coherently. Entry products post lower TSER than premium products, and the difference is visible in the numbers — because that difference is what the price difference buys. A line where every tier claims the same spectacular figure is publishing a marketing decision, not a measurement.
And the strongest standard remains independent: spectrophotometric data in the International Glazing Database, processed through the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory toolchain. Measurement, not assertion.
Documentation with this shape can be trusted as a starting point. The rest of this series is about generating the evidence no document can supply: the experimenter's own.
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