Collecting and Incorporating Feedback from Customers: Making Telephone Surveys Work (for You and for Them)  

There is no question that feedback from customers is a vital input to any information-development process. To try to develop good and useful information without knowing how customers use (or intend to use) it is to work in a vacuum. To produce and deliver information and to ignore the follow-up activity of checking customers use of and satisfaction with the information is nothing less than gross negligence.

Grice, Roger A. and Lenore S. Ridgway. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>User Centered Design>Assessment>Surveys

Comparative User-Focused Evaluation of User Guides: A Case Study    

A comparative evaluation of two user guides,--the document traditionally used by a company and a model document designed on the basis of research results and recommendations,--was carried out using a number of complementary approaches focusing on the user. The quality and suitability of these documents for the target audience were assessed in terms of content, structure, presence of certain organizational devices (such as headings) and pictures included. The results revealed that the model document was more attractive, more efficient, and better adapted to users' needs, thanks to its modular organization (being structured according to "functions"), a large number of pictures, the presence of headings, and rationalization of the vocabulary used.

Ganier, Franck. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2007). Articles>Documentation>Assessment>User Centered Design

Developing Customer-Driven Quality Measurements For Documents  

This paper serves as a description of the demonstration on developing customer-driven quality measurements for documents. Originally presented as a workshop at the 1993 STC Conference in Dallas, the content was modified based on participant evaluations. In addition, the format was changed to a demonstration session to allow for a more flexible presentation method based on participation and time constraints. The session will use as many hands-on exercises as possible to reinforce its objectives.

Fisher, Charles D., Jr. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>TC>Assessment>User Centered Design

Using Calculators for User Engagement

Calculators can play important roles on websites. They are especially popular for financial sites, where they can help users calculate mortgage payments, retirement needs, interest earned, and so on. They also appear on other sites, where users can calculate things as varied as their BMI (body mass index), carbon footprint, life expectancy, or gas mileage.

Zhou, Yun and Cliff Anderson. Usability Professionals Association (2008). Articles>Usability>Assessment>User Centered Design

User Value: Competing Theories and Models   

In design research, the issues of what exactly constitutes user value and how design can contribute to its creation are not commonly discussed. This paper provides a critical overview of the theories of value used in anthropology, sociology, philosophy, business, and economics. In doing so, it reviews a range of theoretical and empirical studies, with particular emphasis on their position on product, user, and designer in the process of value creation. The paper first looks at the similarities and differences among definitions of value as exchange, sign, and experience. It then reviews types and properties of user value such as its multidimensionality, its contextuality, its interactivity, and the stages of user experience dependency identified by empirical studies. Methodological approaches to user value research and their possible applications in design are also discussed. Finally, directions for future research on user value are discussed giving particular emphasis to the need of tools and methods to support design practice.

Boztepe, Suzan. International Journal of Design (2007). Articles>User Centered Design>Assessment