Audience Analysis and the Rhetoric of User-Centered Design

This online course packet, along with the texts and lectures, should provide all the information you need for completing RHE 330C/TLC 331. It includes conventional information, such as a syllabus and course schedule, as well as links to articles and examples. See the navigation bar above for more information.

Spinuzzi, Clay. University of Texas (2004). Academic>Courses>Undergraduate

Compound Mediation in Software Development: Using Genre Ecologies to Study Textual Artifacts

Traditionally, technical communicators have seen the texts that they produce -- manuals, references, instructions -- as 'bridging' or mediating between a worker and her tool. But field studies of workers indicate that the mediational relationship is much more complicated: Workers often draw simultaneously upon many different textual artifacts to mediate their work, including not only the official genres produced by technical communicators manuals but also ad hoc notes, comments, and improvisational drawings produced by the workers themselves. In this chapter, I theorize these instances of compound mediatiation by drawing on activity theory and genre theory. I describe an analytical framework, that of genre ecologies, that can be used to systematically investigate compound mediation within and across groups of workers. Unlike other analytical frameworks that have been used in studies of technology (such as distributed cognition's functional systems and contextual design's work models), the genre ecology framework highlights the interpretive and cultural-historical aspects of compound mediation that are so important in understanding the use of textual artifacts. The analytical framework is illustrated by an observational study of how 22 software developers in a global corporation used various textual artifacts to mediate their software development work.

Spinuzzi, Clay. WAC Clearinghouse (2002). Design>Collaboration>Software

Designing for Lifeworlds: Genre and Activity in Information Systems Design and Evaluation  

Increasingly, professional communicators design and evaluate information systems. Yet the dominant theoretical frameworks and research methodologies are limited in important ways.

Spinuzzi, Clay. University of Texas (1999). Books>Rhetoric>Technology

Exploring the Blind Spot: Audience, Purpose, and Context in "Product, Process, and Profit"

Technical communicators have longed turned to audience, purpose, and context as they analyze situations. But Mirel's article demonstrates that audience-purpose-context is too weak a framework to handle the job of detailed sociopolitical analysis: not only is it inadequate for analyzing the needs of end users, it is also inadequate for analyzing situations within the writer's organization. In this response, this paper explores the weakness of audience-purpose-context and points to alternative sociopolitical frameworks.

Spinuzzi, Clay. Journal of Computer Documentation (2000). Articles>Rhetoric>TC

Full Text Available Documentation, Participatory Citizenship, and the Web: the Potential of Open Systems  

Technical communicators have become increasingly interested in how to 'open up' the documentation process - to encourage workers to participate in developing documentation that closely fits their needs. This goal has led technical communicators to engage in usability testing, user-centered design approaches, and, more recently, open source documentation. Although these approaches have all had some success, there are other ways to encourage the participatory citizenship that is implied in these approaches. One way is through an open systems approach in which workers can consensually modify a given system and add their own contributions to the system.

Spinuzzi, Clay. ACM SIGDOC (2002). Articles>Documentation>Information Design>Open Source

Genre Ecologies: An Open-System Approach to Understanding and Constructing Documentation    

Arguing that current approaches to understanding and constructing computer documentation are based on the flawed assumption that documentation works as a closed system, the authors present an alternative way of thinking about the texts that make computer technologies usable for people. Using two historical case studies, the authors describe how a genre ecologies framework provides new insights into the complex ways that people use texts to make sense of computer technologies. The framework is designed to help researchers and documentors account for contingency, decentralization, and stability in the multiple texts the people use while working with computers. The authors conclude by proposing three heuristic tools to support the work of technical communicators engaged in developing documentation today: exploratory questions, genre ecology diagrams, and organic engineering.

Spinuzzi, Clay and Mark Zachry. Journal of Computer Documentation (2000). Articles>Documentation>Rhetoric

Grappling with Distributed Usability: A Cultural-Historical Examination of Documentation Genres Over Four Decades    

Traditional models of usability assume that usability is a quality that can be designed into a particular artifact. Yet constructivist theory implies that usability cannot be located in a single artifact; rather, it must be conceived as a quality of the entire activity in which the artifact is used. This article describes a distributed approach to usability, based on activity theory and genre theory. It then illustrates the approach with a four-decade examination of a traffic accident location and analysis system (ALAS). Using the theoretical framework of genre ecologies, the article demonstrates how usability is distributed across the many official and unofficial (ad hoc) genres employed by ALAS users.

Spinuzzi, Clay. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2001). Articles>Documentation>Usability>History

Information Design and Usability Testing

This online course packet, along with the texts and lectures, should provide all the information you need for completing RHE 379C/TLC 331. It includes conventional information, such as a syllabus and course schedule, as well as links to articles and examples. See the navigation bar for more information.

Spinuzzi, Clay. University of Texas (2002). Academic>Courses>Undergraduate

Introduction to Technology, Learning, and Culture

This class is an interdisciplinary course that examines some of the shared principles and approaches of the disciplines that make up the liberal arts. In this course we will explore the ways that changes in the technologies of communication and human interaction are transforming the environments for teaching and learning, and for the culture in general.

Spinuzzi, Clay. University of Texas (2000). Academic>Courses>Undergraduate

The Methodology of Participatory Design    

Technical communicators have lately become interested in participatory design as a way to structure and guide their research and development efforts, particularly in online media. But attempts to use participatory design - in technical communication and elsewhere - have been hampered because participatory design has typically been seen as an orientation or field rather than a methodology with its own methods, techniques, and acceptable range of research designs. In this article, I work with a range of participatory design sources to describe it as a methodology useful for technical communicators. After providing the historical and methodological grounding for understanding participatory design as a methodology, I describe its research designs, methods, criteria, and limitations. Finally, I provide guidance for applying it to technical communication research.

Spinuzzi, Clay. Technical Communication Online (2005). Articles>Collaboration>Methods

Toward Integrating Our Research Scope: A Sociocultural Field Methodology    

Technical communicators have recently become interested in user-centered design (UCD) for designing and evaluating technical genres. Yet, a critical examination of the field methods of UCD suggests that they suffer from unintegrated scope: an undesirably limiting focus on a particular level of scope (either the macroscopic level of human activity or the mesoscopic level of goal-directed action) in their theoretical underpinnings and data collection and analysis. This focus is often paired with the assumption that this particular level of scope causally affects what happens at the other levels. Both the focus and the assumption are at odds with sociocultural theories of human activity. This article lays out the problem of unintegrated scope and examines it through critical analyses of two field methods used in UCD research. It concludes by proposing an integrated-scope research methodology for UCD research, with roots in both sociocultural theory and the central issues of technical communication.

Spinuzzi, Clay. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (2001). Articles>Usability>Methods>User Centered Design