http://tc.eserver.org/authors/Yaspo,_Catherine_and_Sarah_E._Leritz-Higgins A bibliography of works by Yaspo, Catherine and Sarah E. Leritz Higgins 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/Yaspo,_Catherine_and_Sarah_E._Leritz-Higgins http://tc.eserver.org/29631.html http://tc.eserver.org/29631.html In this day and age, getting closer to your user base is imperative for creating user-centric documentation. This paper discusses how the Technical Publications group at Mentor Graphics tapped into their annual User Group meeting (MUG) to conduct usability studies. We cover: Convincing management of the ROI of participating in the User Group meeting; establishing relationships with meeting organizers; defining proper "protocol" for interacting with users and other meeting attendees; planning for and dealing with equipment setup; recruiting users to the usability lab; considering and acquiring incentives for usability lab participants.