Advantage of a Rainy Summer

This article deals, despite the title above, with aspects on handling and checking of technical documentation. I consider these aspects as part of the functionality of documentation besides more conventional functionality such as factual correctness, layout, combination of figures and text.

Rullgård, Åke. TC-FORUM (2000). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design

Analyzing Your Users and Needs Before Creating the Help Deliverables; Interview with Nicky Bleiel

In this podcast, Nicky Bleiel says we should talk to as many users as we can — conducting on-site visits, sending surveys, gathering information from Marketing, Support, and other departments — so we can have a better understanding of our users’ needs and the formats and mediums that will work best for them. After completing this audience and needs analysis, we can then go out and create the deliverables that will best serve our users.

Bleiel, Nicky and Tom H. Johnson. Tech Writer Voices (2008). Articles>Interviews>Documentation>User Centered Design

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

Are We Giving Readers What They Want, in the Way They Want and Need It?

With all the talk about Web 2.0 and the attendant technologies, are readers actually being better served by documentation now than they were in the past?

DMN Communications (2008). Articles>Documentation>Technical Writing>User Centered Design

A Case of Exhaustive Documentation: Re-centering System-oriented Organizations Around User Need    

Braun Corporation's home-grown documentation processes served the organization well for its first 50 years as it grew from a local to a nationally-competitive producer of mobility and accessibility products. Now poised to become a global leader in its field, this corporation found its efforts hampered by ineffective and outdated documentation practices, which were hurting the company's competitive advantage. This article describes Braun Corporation's curious mixture of global reach and local isolation. By bringing in a technical communicator with expertise in user-centered design, Braun has begun reforming its formerly exhaustive documentation and communication practices. While technical communicators have incorporated a variety of strategies to develop user-centered and task-based documentation, less attention has been placed on changing the cultures of these organizations. The case presented here represents a shift from establishing documentation procedures to critically assessing and reforming existing procedures for the global workplace, describing the shift from ineffective and exhaustive processes to effective processes with defined goals and measurable outcomes. The article concludes with an inventory for determining whether other organizations are over-documenting processes and products, and offers suggestions for creating better documentation procedures.

Salvo, Michael J., Meredith W. Zoetewey and Kate Agena. Technical Communication Online (2007). Articles>Documentation>Management>User Centered Design

Communicating Rapidly Changing Information  

When purchasing complex software products, users frequently receive large quantities of information; however, to use the product efficiently, they need a visually obvious starting point that helps them locate the specific information they need. With maintained With the quantity and diversity of information, customers need to be able to find the information they need without flipping through endless pages. In order to give the users a starting point in all of the printed and ASCII file information. we created a document entitled the Guide to products, users can use the features available with a new release most efficiently if they have an overview of the major changes to the product and to the information about the product. By using visual devices and creating an overview document. for each release, technical communicators can decrease their costs and increase users' productivity.

Bown, Jennifer and Connie M. Bibus. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design

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

Creating User-Friendly Documentation

We often hear that users do not read documents. To lure readers into reading our documents, we must make documents user-friendly.

Bhatia, Neeraj. Indus (2002). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design>Technical Writing

Customer Partnering: Data Gathering for Complex Online Documentation  

Technical communicators today must document complex applications used in complex environments. Information about users and use models is important under these conditions, especially if documentation will be presented online. Customer partnering, a method of information gathering that supplements surveys, contextual inquiries, usability testing, and interviews, provides a way of involving the users of complex applications in the design of information delivery systems. We used this method to help a client gather important information about user and use models and design a new information library for complex server computer systems.

Hackos, JoAnn T., Molly Hammar and Arthur Elser. ComTech Services (1997). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design>Collaboration

Do Users Use a User Guide?  

Technical writers make distinctions between the types of documents they create: user guides, reference manuals, tutorials. But do users really understand these document types? How do users look for different kinds of information--and how do we, as technical writers, make it clear to them what types of information are available? This paper presents results of usability evaluations of documentation for electronic design automation software, showing how a writing team tried to improve the categorization and presentation of document types.

Heninger, Barbara L. and Michael J. Miller. STC Proceedings (2004). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design>Genre

Do Your Manuals Put Children in Danger? A Survey of Juvenile Products Consumers  

What can manufacturers do to improve the readability of manuals that accompany juvenile products?

Manual Labour (2003). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design>Children

Document Design: A Brief Primer  

Today's documentation must be designed with information retrieval as its key objective. When information is organized and mapped into a consistent, logical structure that uses retrievability aids such as labels that facilitate scanning, blocks of information, advance organizers for the information, keywords, meaningful indexes, and a hierarchical organization, readers can quickly locate and use the information that they need.

Flanders, Melanie G. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>Documentation>Document Design>User Centered Design

Document to the Question: Understanding What Users Ask and Where They Look for the Answers  

The user's idea of the problem is often very different than the help or program designer's. The online help topics often reflect the designer's viewpoint, not the user's.

STC India (2003). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design>Help

The Effects of Motivational Elements in User Instructions    

Should instructional texts be purely technical, with a focus on effectiveness and efficiency, or should they also focus on satisfying and motivating users? Good arguments have been made for paying attention to motivational aspects. But only analyses of existing instructions have been published so far, and guidelines for making user instructions motivational have not yet been studied carefully. This article presents motivational strategies and an experiment to test their effects. The results show that motivational elements have little effect on users’ effectiveness and efficiency in performing tasks, their product appreciation, and their self-efficacy, but they do increase users’ appreciation for the instructions.

Loorbach, N., Steehouder, M., Taal, E. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (2006). Articles>Documentation>Rhetoric>User Centered Design

The Empowered User: A New Approach To Software Documentation  

User empowerment offers a strategy for addressing the software end user's needs. The definition of user empowerment emphasizes a user-driven, informationmanagement oriented approach in response to changes that have taken place in the modern workplace after computers and computer software arrived. Working with software requires a significant shift in thinking and learning, responding to increased abstraction, isolation, and information volumes. Computermediated work demands that users develop new skills and job roles, and that documentation writers develop new techniques for manuals.

Barker, Thomas. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design

Enhancing Customer Satisfaction by Assuring Documentation Quality  

From the customer's perspective, an important and visible part of a product or service is its documentation. Bellcore's Technical Publications (Tech Pubs) organization uses a Quality Assurance (QA) program that focuses on enhancing customer satisfaction through delivering high-quality documentation. This program emphasizes a 'network' approach to documentation development, whereby technical writers can most efficiently use the support network of QA reviewers and management available to them. The Tech Pubs QA program draws on the needs of clients and the expertise of technical writers to strive to achieve the highest level of quality possible in producing documentation.

Dolese, Cathy and Tara Durkin. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Documentation>Quality>User Centered Design

Figuring Out What Your Customers Really Need  

Effective technical manuals and training meet the needs of the customer. No one will argue with that statement. But the trick is to identify the needs of the customer. This paper describes one method to focus product information development on the customer: the needs analysis survey. This methodology that is common in course development and training identifies the tasks customers perform. It also allows course developers and technical communicators to collaborate on an area that they both understand.

Brockett, Susan H. and Susan Katz. STC Proceedings (1996). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design

First Contact: Talking to Your Documentation Users  

You've never met them before. To you, they may represent the unknown and the strange. They view things differently, and their ways may seem almost alien. Yet you are supposed to serve their needs. They are your customers. Isn't it time you made first contact? In this paper, we share lessons learned and invite you to being your own voyage of discovery.

Macdonald, Kyla and Judith Rachel. STC Proceedings (1998). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design

From Black Ink to Grey Matter  

This presentation addresses designers and documenters who develop technologies for human use. The content is based on an intensive 42-hour training package, developed by Communications and Training Inc. Course content and duration can be modified to meet individual requirements. One day interactive workshops are also available.

Hofer, Klaus C. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design

From Purchase to Productivity: Bridging the Documentation Gap  

This presentation will describe an area of documentation that is often overlooked--that which covers the process between the customer purchasing a computer system or upgraded software and the customer becoming productive using that system or software. This information includes all that needs to be planned and accomplished to get new software up, running, and integrated with existing software. Unisys Corporation fills this gap with what we call 'Release Documentation.' This presentation describes the who, what, where, when, and how of that process.

Alexander, Bruce, Avis French and Elaine Randolph. STC Proceedings (1998). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design

Getting to Expert

The gaps in your documentation aren’t there because you haven’t consider a particular level of user; the gaps in your documentation are there because you haven’t considered how one level of user becomes another. How DO you get from Beginner to Expert?

McLean, Gordon. One Man Writes (2008). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design>Technical Writing

Give Them Printed Documentation, Too!!!

The current trend among technical communicators is a twisted form of minimalism that says the documentation should contain procedural documentation but little or no reference documentation. I believe that this trend is a disservice to our customers and tends to increase technical support costs because customers subjected to this form of documentation have little or no access to the information they need. If it’s not there, they can't find it.

Starr, Mike. TC-FORUM (2002). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design

How to Create User-Centered Documentation, Interview with Joe Sokohl

In this podcast, Joe Sokohl explains how to create user-centered documentation by contacting, observing, and interviewing users to gather information about what types of information they use and the help deliverables they actually want.

Sokohl, Joe and Tom H. Johnson. Tech Writer Voices (2008). Articles>Interviews>Documentation>User Centered Design

How to Stop Writing Documentation and Start Working for Your Users  

How do you stop writing documentation and instead give people the information they need to use a product? You start by understanding your users: their level of expertise, the tasks they need to accomplish, and the problems they are likely to run into. Then you can help them do their work by presenting the information from their point of view and focusing on real tasks, rather than product functions. With this background, you can develop information that is easy to understand, easy to find, and visually effective.

Bergen, Karen A. STC Proceedings (2001). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design

I Know What You Need to Know: Is that User Centered Documentation?

Quality management is forcing technical communicators to meet the challenge of writing user-centered documentation. Adequate preparatory work would be to categorize potential users according to experience, knowledge, tasks to be performed, and other use-relevant features. Users' requirements and requests should then be incorporated into the document's design.

Bock, Gabriele. TC-FORUM (1999). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design