(section 090)
February 16th: What Webpages Tell Us about User Documents

Announcements

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Technical Writing 101: Chapters 6, 7, & 8

Although the book is still focusing on quite a bit of introductory information, it highlights several ideas that we should discuss further. Chapter 6 will bolster our persona research topics, Chapter 7 makes us think about ordering information, and Chapter 8 offers some nuts-and-bolts information for visuals.

Chapter 6 Highlights:

Chapter 6 provides us with ways to think about audience, which we'll expand upon tonight. Also, this chapter repeats some ideas from previous chapters, so we'll try to focus on the new material.

• Frustration is failure
  • Simplicity, but be careful about the limits of generalizations
  • Inclusive Language: our society likes to hide overt attempts at inclusion and diversity.
• Generic 8th-grade Reading level
  • Declarative sentences are statements (I don't see why "imperative" sentences, which are commands wouldn't also work. Just don't be too complex).
  • Avoid jargon, slang, and idioms (Again, why wouldn't 8th graders understand slang?)
  • Explain complex terms
  • Chunk information by grouping like items or procedures together
• Analyzing Audience
  • Jump on over to our assignments page for a discussion on this and your persona research.
• Types of Content
  • Interface Information explains functions
  • Reference Information describes/defines content
  • Conceptual Information advises what can be done with a product
  • Procedural Information provides a sequence to achieve a goal with the product
• Freeze Point: the (shifting) time a product's development must stop in order to deliver documentation on time
  
• Technical Writers' jobs based on experience and management responsibilities
• Aren't assignments "real world" projects?

Chapter 7 Highlights:

Much of this is similar to "best practices" advice given by typical technical writing textbooks. Please ask specific questions when they come up.

• Context for the audience
  • What are they about to do?
  • What do they need to know?
  • Why do they want to do this?
  • Where are they?...well, where should they be?
• Clean-looking document
  • Show results in a step
  • Use Figure X.X and callouts to refer to text boxes, tables, and images (p.119)
  • [Shift] + [Enter]
    Brings you to a new line without double spacing or list formatting (bullets, numbers, wingdings, etc.)
• Notes, Warnings, Cautions, and Dangers

Chapter 8 Highlights:

Well, this was supposed to be for next week, but I made a mistake in the syllabus. We'll come back to this next week, but here's the discussion.

English 4182/5182 (taught in the Fall) goes into much more detail on the perceptual, cultural, and rhetorical elements of visual communication. We will focus on visuals as procedural elements this semester. And, yes, I recognize the seemingly arbitrary boundary. As Biggie says "Mo' theories, mo' problems."

• Rich media: video clips, audio clips, and animation
• Vector images
• Bitmap Images
  • Purpose guides; efficiency reigns p. 132
• Lossy compression p. 133
• Image SIZE matters
  • Images guide readers/viewers eyes
  • Relative size can direct a reader's attention
  • Entire screen shoots are rarely beneficial
  • Uniformity of size
  • Linking vs embedding
• Video guides are probably going to become more important in technical communication. Traditional text-based instruction isn't going to die out, but it might become less prevalent.

Webpage "Reading"

I would like you to pick a webpage and analyze its features. If we assume that webpages are supposed to be for the user, then we can assume that a user-centered design would be best (we can critique that assumption, too). Let's consider ease of navigation to be a top priority for an effective webpage.

Some questions to ask about "good" webpages:

• What is the purpose of the webpage (or website)?

• Who is the primary audience? Secondary? Tertiary? Etc.?

• How does a user navigate the website? What facilitates navigation?

• How can the user find "help"? (for navigating...some might say all webpages offer help)

• Thinking from the audience's perspective, how useful is the information that's available?

• Can you quantify the layers of information? For instance, your ideal user has to sift through how much information to accomplish an obvious goal--you need not explore all goals. Basically, how many clicks does it take...

• What's aesthetically pleasing about the website? Why?

• What's not aesthetically pleasing about the website? Why?

• Finally, what would make the page better for a user?

I realize that much of your analysis will be based on your own subjective tastes. I hope we can explore that further in a larger class discussion. Choose any website you'd like, but be aware of your own expertise and familiarity if it's a site you go to frequently.

Add a page to your own website to record this information. You should have a link to this page from your homepage. Do your best to get this up before the break (7:45-8:00). I should have all your webpages linked to the Classmates Webpages page. This will help us easily locate the pages during our discussion.

Sample User Docs

I didn't do the best job scanning these images, so bear with me. You'll have to scroll horizontally and vertically to read everything.

• ATI All-In-Wonder Cable Installation

• Gigabyte Quick Installation Guide

Planning for User Doc #2

What instruments would work well for our next assignment? Hmm...search engines were good for the first User Doc, but we need to move beyond obvious Internet-based functions. One thing's for sure, though, we're going to have a much larger planning memo/document and more analysis on user testing. Also, we're going to try and see my goal of "inspiring" the user through to fruition. Does anyone have any documents that advocate or encourage users to explore the functions/functionality of instruments?

Although I've stressed and used computer-based examples overwhelmingly in our discussions, you are more than welcome to document other kinds of technology. Of course, we're going to do the usability testing in class, so your instrument would have to fit that constraint. However, I would consider out-of-class user testing if you documented it well.

Planning for User Doc #2 User Testing

We'll have more in-depth planning documents this time around. Unfortunately, we aren't getting live subjects...er...participants from outside class, but I know all of you will work hard to help your fellow classmates by being as objective as possible. The first change, though, will be that I want you all to come up with three personas for the instrument you'll document. I also want you to include the following:

• Describe the instrument

• Explain how the user will approach the set of instructions

• Plan how you will test your draft

  • Develop a pre-test briefing strategy: make a statement to tell each user (a script), ask questions about comfort level, and/or have them watch something (this last one works best for descriptive documents like natural or mechanical proceses).
  • Come up with five post-test questions that use a Likert scale and have a comments section
  • Set at least four goals and make sure they're measurable
    • User did all steps in XX minutes...
    • User completed the instructions in XX minutes...
    • User used the help menu less than XX times
      -or-
      User never had to look at the help menu or ask for help.
• Describe three Personas you had in mind when creating the document--these are Cooper personas and not the detailed ones for your Persona Research assignment
• Actually create the instructions

Remember, you need to build on your skills throughout the semester (and from the previous semester, year, or what have you), so I want to see some sophistication. Let me show you what a student did a couple years ago...

User Doc #2

User Doc #3

Have a rough draft of the above planning document (think of it as a memo if you'd like) to accompany your actual user document next week, which will be the steps the user will carry out to do something. Who has an idea of what they'd like to do?

Midterm Preview

Your midterm will be based on the reading assigned and activities/discussions we've had up to this point. The exam will be on Moodle (unless something peculiar happens) and will consist of multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank, short-answer, and True/False questions.

Topics to pay attention to for the midterm:

Cooper, Cooper, Cooper. While the whole book is fair game, there are places you ought to pay particularly close attention to.

• Personas
• Who's to blame when software is too dificult to use?
• Apologists and Survivors
• Dancing bearware
• Tasks vs. Goals
• False goals that programmers have (p. 158)
• Polite software features
  • Instant gratification
  • Not making the user feel stupid
• Scenarios
  • Daily use
  • Necessary-use
  • Edge-Case
• Perpetual Intermediates
• User-Centered Design forever!!!

101 Chapters 1-8

• Audience(s)
• Purpose
• Critical Literacy, Techno-literacy, and critical technological awareness
• Culture of the workplace
• Single Sourcing
• Style
• Correctness and Choice
• Frustration is failure
• Generic 8th-grade Reading level
• Types of Content

Class Material/Discussion

• Paper Prototyping
• Novice, intermediate, and skilled users categories
• Being critical when users rate their own knowledge
• Who to recruit and who not to recruit (ideally...even if we can't practice this in class)
• Think-out-loud procedure
• Being an unbiased researcher
• Measurable, operationalized goals
• Quantifying user satisfaction (Likert scale)

Of course, the above is not exhaustive. If you've read carefully (don't skip over the word "carefully"), this should be a breeze.

IRA-Career Essays

I passed back your IRA essays last week. I have some general comments on last week's webpage.

Before We Go...

Keep up with the reading. We'll discuss Ch. 8 and other important things next week after the midterm (get here on time). The midterm should take 30-45 mins.

This is the text from Article 14 of Chapter 116-143.7. Tuition surcharge:

The Board of Governors of The University of North Carolina shall ensure that procedures are established that are necessary to impose a one hundred percent (100%) tuition surcharge on students who take more than 140 degree credit hours to complete a baccalaureate degree in a four-year program or more than one hundred ten percent (110%) of the credit hours necessary to complete a baccalaureate degree in any program officially designated by the Board of Governors as a five-year program. The calculation of these credit hours taken at a constituent institution or accepted for transfer shall exclude hours earned through the College Board's Advanced Placement or CLEP examinations, through institutional advanced placement or course validation, or through summer term or extension programs. No surcharge shall be imposed on any student who exceeds the degree credit hour limits within the equivalent of four academic years of regular term enrollment, or within five academic years of regular term enrollment in a degree program officially designated by the Board of Governors as a five-year program.

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