Anthropologists Go Native in the Corporate Village

Anthropologist Elizabeth Briody earned her PhD studying communities of Mexican-American farm workers and Catholic nuns. For the past 11 years, though, she's been studying a different community -- the men and women of General Motors. As GM's 'industrial anthropologist,' Briody explores the intricacies of life at the company. It's not all that different from her previous work. 'Anthropologists help elicit the cultural patterns of an organization,' she says. 'What rules do people have about appropriate and inappropriate behavior? How do they learn those rules and pass them on to others?' Briody is a pioneer in a growing and influential field -- corporate anthropology. What began as an experiment in a handful of companies such as GM has become an explosion. In recent years, some of the biggest names in business have recruited highly trained anthropologists to understand their workers and customers better, and to help design products that better reflect emerging cultural trends. These companies are convinced that the tools of ethnographic research -- minute observation, subtle interviewing, systematic documentation -- can answer questions about organizations and markets that traditional research tools can't.

Kane, Kate A. Fast Company (1996). Articles>Usability>Methods>Contextual Inquiry

Anthropology and International Education via the Internet  

Tomoko Hamada and Kathleen Scott describe a collaborative classroom experience between students at the College of William and Mary and at Keio University, looking at the pros and cons of this international experiment. Their research helps to assess that collaboration, and draw conclusions that can be useful in understanding how people use technology to communicate, and how cultural differences affect that communication.

Hamada, Tomoko and Kathleen Scott. Journal of Electronic Publishing (2000). Articles>Education>Online>International

The Anti-Mac: Violating the Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines

Graphical computer interfaces have become the norm. They are based on a number of principles such as metaphor, see-and-point, direct manipulation, user control, and WYSIWIG. The Anti-Mac project explored alternative interfaces that might result from violating the principles behind conventional graphical interfaces. What emerges is a human-computer interface based on language, a richer representation of objects, expert users, skilled agents, and shared control.

Nielsen, Jakob. ACM SIGCHI (1995). Articles>Human Computer Interaction>User Interface>Standards

Anticircumvention Rules: Threat to Science

Scientists who study encryption or computer security or otherwise reverse engineer technical measures, who make tools enabling them to do this work, and who report the results of their research face new risks of legal liability because of recently adopted rules prohibiting the circumvention of technical measures and manufacture or distribution of circumvention tools. Because all data in digital form can be technically protected, the impact of these rules goes far beyond encryption and computer security research. The scientific community must recognize the harms these rules pose and provide guidance about how to improve the anticircumvention rules.

Samuelson, Pamela. Science (2001). Articles>Intellectual Property>Copyright

Anxiety In Action: Sullivan's Interpersonal Psychiatry as a Supplement to Vygotskian Psychology  

Is there a way to deal with such psychiatric issues in a way that is consistent with the psychological theory of Vygotsky and his followers? Or do these issues represent a totally different subject matter belonging to the distinctive disciplines of psychiatry and clinical psychology, which use entirely different intellectual, investigative, and practical tools? Are Vygotskian approaches to being human in fact blind to major processes of human interpersonal development and to the consequences of that development for the social participation that Vygotsky identifies as the source of higher mental processes?

Bazerman, Charles. UCSB (1994). Articles>Rhetoric>Theory

Anything That Can Go Wrong: Lessons Learned from A Decade of Toolkit Documentation  

Writing software toolkit documentation for programmers is a special challenge and opportunity for technical writers. Compared with writing software documentation for lay users, toolkit documentation is more demanding and exacting. Checking facts and finding tiny errors is like riding a motorcycle through a swarm of gnats. However, for me at least, toolkit writing has opened doors to a larger role and greater input into product design. Engineers treat me like a peer and I get to see into their culture. I know my readers and salespeople need me.

van Oss, Joseph E. STC Proceedings (1999). Articles>Documentation>SDK>Technical Writing

Anything Worth Writing Is Worth Writing in XML  

Tyson supports the claim of his title with a detailed discussion of three important benefits of XML.

Tyson, Paul H. Intercom (2002). Articles>Writing>Information Design>XML

Apocalypse? Not Now: Three Myths of New Media

The Internet explosion has spawned quite a few popular myths, and some Eye readers may not know what to believe. I'd like to offer my dismantling of what may be the top three misperceptions.

Raymond, Eric S. Editorial Eye, The (1996). Articles>Internet>Cyberculture

Appearing for Sentence

Commas, semi-colons and colons are the sentence tidiers. Used correctly, they'll give your written language the 'punctuation' that pauses, voice modulations and gestures provide when you speak.

Right Words. Articles>Writing>Style Guides

The Applicability of the ADA to the Internet

As the Internet has increased in prominence in all sectors of society, interested individuals have begun to question whether or not the Internet should be included in the regulations set forth by the Americans with Disabilities Act. Right now there is no explicit reference to the Internet in any of the language of the act.

Bohman, Paul. WebAIM (2000). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Policies and Procedures

Applied Empathy: A Design Framework for Meeting Human Needs and Desires

The design community keeps making a lot of noise about designing for people/users/customers. However, while this notion is well-intentioned and even conceptually correct, I find much of it boils down to empty rhetoric. What exactly are we doing? More user research? More usability testing? Certainly these are valid approaches to finding out about people's needs, but they're only a small part of an optimal solution. Are we using hollow tasks and tools like personas and scenarios? Those approaches typically take design farther away from the people for whom we are designing products rather than closer. How about focusing on usability and the user experience? That gets at only part of the issue and tends to come from the perspective of the product--as opposed to the more universal needs and desires of actual people.

Knemeyer, Dirk. UXmatters (2006). Articles>User Centered Design>Methods

Applying Agile Methods in Rapidly Changing Environments  

The authors (both coming from a heavyweight software development environment) describe their approach to transferring a heavyweight method into a more agile approach. One can argue whether the described result is intermediate or final, the the process described and the choices made are well worth studying.

Kutschera, Peter and Steffen Schafer . Jeckstein.com (2001). Articles>Collaboration>Agile

Applying Audience Invoked Models to Instructional Design Methods

You should know what appeals to and motivates your audience before you approach them with a suggestion for action. The same point is also true for writers. The writer must have a good idea of who the audience is and what motivates them in order to create arguments that will convince his or her audience to not only to read the text, but also to behave in the desired fashion after they have read the text.

Cleman, Kelly A. Orange Journal, The (2001). Articles>Education>Instructional Design

Applying Common Sense to Technical Writing    

How can budding writers achieve a middle path in their approach to documentation? This no-model approach is an attempt at busting the myth that only a model-based approach works.

Chitkara, Promila. International Journal for Technical Communication (2007). Articles>TC>Writing>Technical Writing

Applying Computer Analysis and Design Techniques to Document Component-Based Software  

Facing the challenges involved in developing documentation for component-based software (for example, object-oriented technology, intelligent agents, and distributed computing) requires a documentation strategy based on the same processes and methodologies used by such technologies. These strategies need to be adapted to meet documentation, rather than coding needs. Developing this strategy now, as component-based technology is still maturing, will help technical communicators keep pace.

Bachmann, Karen L. and Ginger Doherty. STC Proceedings (1998). Articles>Documentation>Software

Applying Copyleft To Non-Software Information

Copyleft contains the normal copyright statement, asserting ownership and identification of the author. However, it then gives away some of the other rights implicit in the normal copyright: it says that not only are you free to redistribute this work, but you are also free to change the work. However, you cannot claim to have written the original work, nor can you claim that these changes were created by someone else. Finally, all derivative works must also be placed under these terms.

Stutz, Michael. GNU. Articles>Intellectual Property>Copyright>Open Source

Applying Expectancy-Violations Theory to Online Documentation  

A person usually expects another person to behave according to accepted norms, but how does a person respond to a message that violates his/her expectations? One theory dealing with violations of expectations is Burgeon and Hale's (1) nonverbal expectancy-violations theory. This theory posits that, under certain circumstances, violations of social norms and expectations may be an effective strategy for communicators to achieve the intended communication purpose. Although the expectancy-violations theory focuses on expectations for nonverbal behavior, such as gaze and conversational distance (2), I believe that this theory can also apply to expectations for humancomputer interaction.

Chiu, Yu-Kwong. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Documentation>Rhetoric>Online

Applying Hypertext and Hypermedia to Scholarly Journals Enables Both Product and Process Innovation  

Early uses of hypertext technologies were associated with scholarly communication. New electronic-only journals have been quick to adopt hypertext/hypermedia technologies. Existing print journals have also started to adopt such technologies as they make the transition to parallel delivery. The widespread uptake of the World Wide Web has enabled journals to improve, enhance and transform what they do. This paper surveys these developments and places them in context.

Treloar, Andrew E. ACM Computing Surveys (1999). Articles>Publishing>Hypertext

Applying "Mass Customisation" Manufacturing Principles to Solve Technical Communication Problems

This article discusses how organisations can resolve the conflict between the need to produce bespoke, customer-specific, technical communication and the need to re-use as much information as possible. It begins with a description of the conflict and resulting trade-off and then compares it to the field of manufacturing, which has found ways to deal with a similar issue. Universal information modules are introduced as the solution - these allow the manufacturing principle of mass customization to be applied to technical communication. The article ends by outlining the requirements needed for supporting tools in order to adopt this solution.

Rombauts, Yves. Cherryleaf (2005). Articles>Content Management

Applying Minimalist Principles, Strategies, and Techniques  

People use documentation differently from what we might expect. They don’t like to read; instead they jump to a task with prior knowledge, and sometimes don’t realize they’ve made an error. Understanding how users learn and applying John Carroll’s minimalist principles will help provide solutions to this problem. Documentation that has been successfully planned and designed for minimalism may take longer to create than other manuals, but reaps the benefits of making users more productive and happy, while reducing support calls, maintenance, translation, and publishing costs. The key factors to a successful minimalist approach (or any good documentation design) are a keen understanding of your users, prototypes designed to match tasks relevant to users, and iterative testing to improve each draft.

Lester, Susan M.J. STC Proceedings (2000). Articles>TC>Writing>Minimalism

Applying Performance Technology Principles to Documentation  

Technical writers often produce documentation for products or systems without first determining the best document media or even the necessity for documentation. In some instances, alternatives to documentation may best serve the product or system users. This paper describes the field of Performance Technology and illustrates how to apply principles of Performance Technology to decide when to create documentation.

Hayes, Gabby. STC Proceedings (1996). Articles>Documentation>Technology

Applying the Elaboration Likelihood Model to Technical Recommendation Reports  

Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) can help proposal writers identify effective document design techniques and parts of arguments that are critical to persuasion. In addition, ELM has implications for other types of technical communication, including recommendation or feasibility reports. While one would anticipate that decision-makers would be willing and able to evaluate critically all arguments presented in a recommendation report, ELM explains why this is rarely so. Therefore, technical communicators can profit by understanding and using the two routes to persuasion or attitude shift, the central and peripheral routes, explained by ELM.

Engle, Carol. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Business Communication>Reports>Rhetoric

Applying the Sensation-Perception Continuum to User Documentation  

The sensation-perception continuum represents the interplay of sensation and perception in everything we think and do. Technical communicators must exploit this continuum by understanding and applying sensory filters and perceptual tendencies in the design and development of information. This paper discuss three sensory filters: thresholds, cocktail-party effect, and sensory adaptation; it discusses four perceptual tendencies: perceptual set, figure-ground relationships, laws of grouping, and goodness of figures.

Coe, Marlana A. STC Proceedings (1996). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design

Applying Web 2.0 Technologies to Technical Documentation

This article is based on my presentation at the Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators' annual conference in October, 2006. Every now and then, there is a change in the value of what technical authors deliver. These are moments when organisations pay attention to technical documentation. This is because they recognise that these changes mean they can create something that will be of real value to the business and to their customers. In recent years, there have been three "waves of interestingness". The first wave was the introduction of Windows Help (WinHelp). The second major wave was the introduction of the Internet and intranets. This was a time when organisations looked at how they could transfer large amounts of information from paper to online. They were faced with issues such as how users could access and understand all this information easily - issues that technical communicators deal with on a day-to-day basis. I believe we're just about to approach the new wave, which we have called "Tech Writing 2.0".

Pratt, Ellis. Cherryleaf (2006). Articles>Web Design>Documentation>Technical Writing