January 31st: Planning For Your User Documents

IRA-Career Essays Due

I'll probably get around to picking these up at break. If you're interested in being part of the study I'm doing, please fill out a "Consent Form." If there aren't any left, let me know, and I'll print more off. The forms are up on the front desk next to where you may return your papers. I have a page devoted to the study.

If you would like to participate but no form is available. Put your name on the sheet of paper, and I'll get you a form.

Let the Funner* Times Begin

Below is a list of what we'll attempt to get to today. I'll give you a preview now:

• Finish IRA-Career Discussion

• Computer Programming Language History (maybe)

• The Future of Tech Writing and the IT World

• Inspiration in User Docs?

• Thinking Through the User Experience

• User-Centered Technology Ch. 1 & 2 Highlights

• Interactive Design vs. Usability Testing

• Planning User Doc #1

• IRA-Career Essays (turn them in before you leave)

We want to have 30 minutes or so at the end of class to develop a plan for User Doc #1. I know you can do it! Can you hear the drums Fernando? Huh...can you? Well, I can!

The Future of Tech Writing

Last week I prophesied (to some of you) the demise of the technical writing profession in its traditional, engineering-centered standard. If you didn't hear that, well, I'm telling you now. I don't believe the profession is going away completely, but I foresee a split in future technical writer identities:

1) the information designer (manager, place in the IT lifecycle)

2) the copy editor (contractual, temporary, LIFO)

Based on my own observations, I've come to this conclusion. Am I right? I don't know. Do I have the final say? Absolutely not. This is a discussion that should take place, and I hope it prompts research (institutional and individual) and thinking. Professionals, teachers, and students ought to engage in discussions about the field's future. If anything, social and political changes (economic falls under social, by the way) will most likely alter all "work" in the future, and technical communication isn't exempt from change. But what changes? We won't know until after they happen, but we (in the larger sense, not just in class) can still make predictions, defend/refine those predictions, and prepare 21st-century citizens. Otherwise, we risk indoctrinating 21st-century workers with 20th-century workplace ideology that ignores our information-oriented economic base.

Therefore, I see discussions of work as necessary to our class. Now, I know many of you aren't taking this course to become technical writers, but the career issues we bring up will be important for your understanding of workplace environments. Most of our discussions will be general, but they ought to focus on social forces that permeate through society, which you should consider a collection of (sub) cultures as opposed to a culture.

I put together a webpage that lists jobs and job descriptions in technical writing. Most are in IT companies, but some are in other areas. This selection was just a google search (done a while ago), so I have no statistical basis for claiming that it is representative of the total population of technical writing jobs. However, based on my observations over the last decade, I think two jobs stand out as exemplary Tech Writing jobs:

Consider opening these in different tabs, so you can more easily compare them.

• The tech writer in an IT firm (a "model" future job description)
• The tech writer in a consulting firm

The entire list is here, and I have another shorter page here. I keep meaning to add to these, but I don't get many job lists coming my way...I hope that's not a sign of the times. I'll try to add to these in the future.

Notice the contractual/temporary vs salaried/permanent positions. Also, notice the skills required for the positions. The list is for reference and class discussion, so don't worry about job details showing up on an exam or quiz.

Inspiration in User Documents

I've been continuing to think about inspiration in technical communication. Do we ever inspire users to try to tackle instructions for a tool, system, or process? I don't think we always can (or should), but I'm  suggesting you should try to inspire your users to want to learn more about the interface, instrument, or whatever it is you're attempting to document. Is it possible? I'm curious to see what you come up with. However, don't fixate on that because we'll go into more detail in the next couple classes. Frankly, it's hard to inspire with a search engine...or is it? Don't forget to consider personas vs. users.

Thinking Through the User Experience

This course is a Technical Communication course that is going to focus on writing user documents. In order to write user documents effectively, we ought to think broadly about user experiences and have that (critical) thinking inform creating documents for users.

• Critical Literacy: knowing how writing style effects your message and your receivers' attitudes
• Technological Awareness vs. Technological Literacy
  • Technological Literacy--knowing how to use technologies
  • Technological Awareness--knowing that technologies can be used for specific goals but not necessarily knowing how to use the technologies to carry out those goals
• Critical Technological Awareness: Being critically aware of technology means looking beyond a socially constructed artifact’s assumed practical benefit and critiquing its effects and development
• The various jobs of a technical writer: writer, manager, detective, QA/QC, and creative thinker

• Knowing the culture of the workplace
  • Guidelines vs. practices
  • Standardizing the organization's language: a practice in ethnographic research
  • Audience expectations: clients, supervisors, co-workers, the public, partners, etc.
• Single Sourcing: Like WORMS-Write Once Read Many
  • Canned processes that can be used over again
  • Use(less)r guides that let users figure out which release, model, or version they have
  • What's your organization's structure?

User-Centered Technology: Chapters 1 & 2

Did anyone notice a difference between Cooper and today's reading? User-Centered Technology is geared toward an academic audience (much like this soon-to-be manifesto) and explores usability or thinking about the user experience from a theoretical perspective. Of course, it's still useful for all of you who will do some form of technical communicating in the future. Cooper's book is aimed at designers and business people in IT.

Chapter 1 Highlights:

Most of Chapter 1 is introductory, but it does bring up some key ideas for having a critical understanding of user experiences and situated knowledge. Users do not approach technologies or documentation on technologies as blank slates--they have a priori assumptions.

• Aristotle quotation: 2500 years later and he still has much to offer us. Basically, the passage claims that users judge the products built better than creators of those products (p. 3).
  • How come?
• Mundane activities get internalized (p. 3).
  • Knowledge Authority--"The knowledge of everyday practice has become nearly voiceless: a colonized knowledge ruled by the technology and the 'experts' who have developed the technologies" (p. 5).
  • Users lack authority--"We learn of know-how and use through practice, so that the practice defines the theory of our actions: actions of know how and use" (p. 6).
• Macintrash can icon (p. 8).
• Situated Knowledge: "...users know about technology and the experiences they have with it are always located in a certain time and place that changes from minute to minute, day to day, era to era (p. 9).
  • Reflecting on the mundane: "Users understand technology from a unique perspective constructed from knowledge of practice within certain contexts" (p. 10).
• Democracy and Users
  • "In a society that is perpetually bombarded with new technologies, it is important to reflect on what it means, in terms of the larger social order, to be a user of technology" (p. 11).
  • "Users of a culture...often are the better judges [of technology], but if they are silent or invisible they they (we) have little power to affect the decision-making processes" (p. 11).
  • Think about the right to vote and a citizen's voting responsibilities. What is the relationship between voter apathy and, well, user apathy--not wanting to critique the technology.
• Historical Contexts (p. 13)
  • Technology and telos--the end or goal of a technology (or anything)
  • Dumbing down technology
• Technical Communication's contributions to interdisciplinarity (pp. 13-16)

Chapter 2 Highlights:

This chapter connects technical communication to rhetoric and cultural studies. Science and Technology Studies is a field (actually fields) of study that analyze technology as a social product and not mainly as an engineered product. The field asks why this technology and investigates ideology--the values, attitudes, and beliefs of a culture. The main thesis of this chapter is to consider user context: "a certain cultural and historical moment that constrains everything [users] do" (p. 17).

• Technology as panacea (p. 19).
  • An attitude many of us have is that technology always progresses.
  • Additionally, many of us also believe that the future will bring technological solutions to problems.
  • NOTE: The above two observations are generalizations--not universal statements. Obviously, not everyone believes technology will solve our problems, but we have a cultural bias toward techno-panacea.
  • Telos of technology: "to move constantly and consistently toward...the 'Good'" (p. 20).
• Rhetoric and Technology
  • Good definition for technical communication: "rhetoric is a systematic series or collection of techniques that makes the production and dissemination of language strategic for the orator or writer" (p. 22).
  • When we define rhetoric as an art we have to consider ethics and "suit the needs of the audience or, in the case of technology, the user" (p. 23).
  • Human experience is not absolute. "User-centered theory" needs to be able to "[deal] with contingency and mutability...the 'reality' of human contexts (p. 24).
• System-centered model of technology (p. 25)
  • Technological determinism: viewing technology or "the system as an inevitable result of the logical progression of human activity or...the rational outcome of life itself so it is tantamount to natural law" (p. 26).
  • Designer's image of a technology (p. 27)
  • Notice when the "user perspective" often enters into the lifecycle of a product...when little can be done.
• User friendly: "easy to use but may not be in the best interest of the user" (p. 29).
  • We operate technologies that we know very little about. Consider what the user knows about the lights at home.
• User-Centered Technology:
  • "keep[s] the user's view of reality in mind" (p. 30).
  • "User-centered theory argues for the user as an integral, participatory force in the process" of creating technology (p. 30).
  • Democracy anyone?
  • "The user's situation....represents the user activities of learning, doing, and producing" (p. 31).
  • Notice the questions a user-centered approach asks (2nd full para. p. 31).
• "Situation and constraint: No technology is developed, disseminated, or used in a vacuum, and a user-centered theory would be remiss...if it bypassed this crucial concern" (p. 37).
• Cultural forces: "Cultural forces define nearly every human action, and in a world more dependent than ever on international communication and technology transfer the element of culture is without question essential when defining the use of a technology" (p.39).

Thinking critically about the reading. Remember, "critical thinking" is not synonymous with criticizing; instead, critical thinking (re)looks at a subject with the goal of deconstructing its meaning or development--what conditions or dispositions led a designer, author, or engineer to create a work (book, technology, idea, etc.)? Johnson claims "Producing...is an activity rarely associated with users" (p. 38). What can be said about that statement in the context of the following:

• Open-source software
• Customizable features
• Do-it-yourself home improvement

Interactive Design vs. Usability Testing

There's an interesting assignment that comes from a previous textbook I used for this class on paper prototyping:

Exercise: Working in groups, create a "paper" prototype for an information kiosk to assist visitors to your campus or office building or to a shopping mall or museum. The kiosk will be located in the lobby or central location (you define where). Visitors unfamiliar with the services or locations of departments would consult this kiosk to get a sense of where to go and how to get there. Consider the types of visitors you need to help and the types of information they will want. Create a profile of your primary visitors and tasks. Then, create the "interface," beginning with the main screen, from which the user can select other screens for information. When the task is complete, a representative from another group will become the target user for you kiosk to test the usability of your prototype. (Exercise comes from Barnum, 2002, p. 137)**

Instead of using index cards or paper, use the Notepad and have separate text files (.txt) represent different cards--using word documents would be goofy, so use Notepad. This ought to have a rather interesting effect on the user. When you come to the part where you bring in another user, describe (meaning write this down on something) how the user adjusts the prototype (the "cards") you created. Make sure you ask the user to arrange the cards on the desktop as they would want them to appear on a kiosk interface--don't coach them. Therefore, you create the cards, but let the user arrange them.

One of you should host the final prototype on his/her webpage, but each member should have a link to the prototype. Make screen captures or an entire screen capture of the layout the group decides.

Those of you who are testing these designs, I want you to report back to class why you arranged the cards or adjusted the contents of the cards (adding or deleting) the way you did. In other words, what is your mental model of how that particular kiosk should be set up?

Time permitting, I want to play a little memory game based on the short- and long-term memory but, if we're short on time tonight, we'll skip it.

Planning for User Doc #1

Please logon to Moodle and answer the following 1), 2), and 3) in the "Computer Literacy" discussion forum:

• On a scale of 1-10 (1 being least, 10 being greatest), rate your computer literacy.
• Why do you believe you are or are not "computer literate"? In other words, what skills or knowledge do you have or don't have that makes you claim you're computer literate or not.
• What is the your major/background?

Class Group Work (time permitting)

I want you to turn to the person to your left and observe him or her doing the following:

• Find the web page for Vanderbilt University's nightly news footage repository.
• Type up a list of the news channels the repository holds.

Then, the person you observed should observe you do the following:

• Find out who won the Nobel prize in physics 102 years ago.
• Type up a list of the winners.

User Document #1

Assuming you're thinking about search engines, come up with a way to help a novice user "have fun with a purpose". You'll have a chance to test your classmates next class, so for the rest of class finish a rough draft for User Doc #1. Don't forget to include:

• A brief description of the instrument

• Explanation of how the user will approach the set of instructions

• A plan on how to test your draft (your document)

• The actual step-by-step instructions

• Users or Personas?

These word-processed planning documents are part of your User Doc grade, so make sure you do them.

User Doc for Uploading Webpages

When you were reading Cooper's book, did you think about the frustrations you had with not only uploading a webpage but documenting that process? What parallels did you find? If you have some more time, let's try to perfect those user docs from a couple weeks ago.

Before We Go...

Make sure you have a rough draft for your User Doc #1 next class (2/07). You'll be doing a user test on two of your classmates. Your User Doc #1 is due in two weeks (2/14).

*Discussion on Funner

What?!? Funner isn't a word. I mean, it's not in the dictionary...or is it. Click below for the scanned dictionary entries:

• Funner and Funnest

• Syllabuses

Words scanned from Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. 10th ed. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 1999. p. 472 and p. 1194, respectively. In fact, this is one of the dictionaries used in the Writing and Resources Center.

How about concision instead of conciseness?

For an in-depth discussion on the "proper" usage of fun, check out World Wide Words or Grammar Girl's Discussion. Remember, when it comes to word usage, it's not who says it, it's who hears it.

**Barnum, Carol M. (2002). Usability Testing and Research. New York: Longman.

..