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Judy Ramey, Chair |
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Technical Communication, UW |
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Brief historical note about TC |
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Contemporary TC: sample job descriptions |
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Key skills and abilities |
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What communication design adds to the design
process |
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Getting user feedback with simple usability
testing |
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Q&A |
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TC: describing how it works, how to do it |
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World War II spurred huge growth |
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‘80s and ‘90s:
technical writing evolves into communication design |
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Web leads to growth in both back-end technical
development and creative content development |
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Executive Producer, MAGI Group, Inc.: “I manage a team of web/multimedia
producers. We bring text, graphics, animation, audio, video, and technology
together to create Web and CD-ROM solutions for our clients. Challenging but fun!” |
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Usability Manager, Business Tools Division,
Microsoft (was Visio): “I
investigate user issues and make sure our findings influence product
design. My job includes creating team strategies for getting on the user wavelength
for four different product groups.” |
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Master of Scribes, Loudeye: “I manage user education. UE is responsible for internal and
external technical documentation (planning, writing, editing, publishing,
maintaining) and usability (planning, doing site visits, prototyping,
testing, evaluating, recommending improvements).” |
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Program Manager, Human-Centered Design,
Akamai: “We work with product
managers and engineering on all aspects of product design and
development. We participate in
specifying the target customers, build task and information flow maps,
design prototype UIs, and do usability testing.” |
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User Experience Engineer, Microsoft: “I do the research necessary to
understand who our users are and what they want to do, then I design all
aspects of the users’ encounter with our product—user interface, task flow,
online documentation, help, wizards . . .” |
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Left-brain, right-brain! |
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Creative abilities |
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Content creation, graphic design, fluency and
style (writing, editing, layout, scripting) |
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Empathy, ability to role-play |
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Analytical abilities |
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Audience analysis, task analysis, needs
assessment |
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Information architecting |
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Ability to collect and analyze data |
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Organizational abilities |
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Project management |
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Ability to manage tradeoffs to achieve
organizational goals |
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Early on:
Investigate and describe who the intended users are and what they
want to do (audience analysis, requirements analysis) |
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Early on:
Investigate and describe what the intended users need to know and
invent ways to meet their needs |
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The magic:
anticipating the unknown (new technologies and the frontiers of
use!) |
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Mid-design:
Does your prototype work for typical users? Why or why not? |
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What can go wrong?—Everything! |
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Values don’t match users’ values |
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Terminology doesn’t match that of users |
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Style doesn’t engage users |
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Task organization doesn’t match that of users |
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Late design:
Have we got it right yet? |
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Think like me:
organize the info my way |
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Give me the idea: self-running demos |
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Step me through: “training wheels,” wizards, cue cards |
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Give me running commentary: IBM’s “info pops,” balloon help |
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Tell me how:
online help, user guide |
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Tell me why:
concepts, definitions |
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A Website communicates a personality and offers
a relationship |
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A Website talks to the user and offers the user
roles to play |
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Usability problems mostly grow out of
communication problems |
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Bottom line:
Usability problems come BEFORE the sale |
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How to get user input into your design |
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How to get user feedback as you design |
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The basic process: find typical users, give them expected tasks or activities,
get them to talk as they work |
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Not an interview!—an observation |
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User is center stage, designer just watches and
learns! |
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An example: travel clock |
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Typical tasks:
set the time, set an alarm |
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Volunteer! |
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Watch for design problems |
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Analyze what we saw |
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Figure out how to improve the design |
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Share the results |
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What do you want to know about the field? |
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What do you want to know about the TC
department? |
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