http://tc.eserver.org/authors/Rauch,_Thyra_L A bibliography of works by Rauch, Thyra L in the field of technical communication. en-us Copyright (c) 2005-08 by the EServer. All rights reserved. tclib-editorial@eserver.org (TC Library Editorial Board) webmaster@eserver.org (Geoffrey Sauer) http://tc.eserver.org/images/newlogo.gif http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Rauch,_Thyra_L http://tc.eserver.org/23145.html http://tc.eserver.org/23145.html Task analysis information is gathered from present and future customers within a clearly specified domain. Participants in the session are carefully selected to be representative of the target market. Information is gathered in a way to reduce the potential for bias. Participants provide information in their own words, group data in ways meaningful to them, prioritize tasks according to their business needs, and provide extensive detail on their most important tasks. By session end, there is group consensus defining the most important user tasks. And, through use of our meeting software, we have captured all the information for ready analysis. http://tc.eserver.org/20155.html http://tc.eserver.org/20155.html Technical communicators are responsible for a great deal of what the user sees and touches. This means that more technical communicators are becoming integrated members of product design teams, bringing their expertise into the group and taking the lead in designing and evaluating their information systems, Creating low-fidelity paper prototypes of software for customer feedback sessions is an effective methodfor gathering valuable user input early in development. http://tc.eserver.org/18220.html http://tc.eserver.org/18220.html The purpose of this paper is to provide a little background on my position for the progression on usability issues. I’ll present what measures I typically collect, and the differences between performance and preference data. Having this as a starting place may help us to have a useful progression discussion. http://tc.eserver.org/18227.html http://tc.eserver.org/18227.html User-centered design includes a focus on user characteristics and their environment, on user tasks, on measurable user goals, on prototyping alternative designs, and on testing, improving, and retesting the winning design. Insights are shared from UCD projects associated with the BookManager and VisualAge products. http://tc.eserver.org/14350.html http://tc.eserver.org/14350.html Currently, “user-centered design” is the touted methodoloay for software development for many companies. To many of us, it’s merely a more global articulation of what we have always believed to be the preferred methodology. Technical communicators and HF professionals have critical roles to play as part of a multi-disciplinary user-centered design team. (1) This paper presents some viewpoints on how technical communicators and HF professionals can increase each other's effectiveness.