#15177
Describes ten arguments technical writers can use to demonstrate their importance to their employers.
Hart, Geoffrey J.S. Intercom (2001). Careers>Workplace>Assessment
#20475
Does your business put out a regular publication, such as a newsletter, journal or annual report? If so, the reason for it is to communicate a particular message to a particular audience, and it will be vital to your business to do this effectively. The following are some questions to ask yourself when assessing your publications.
#13729
Publishing Futures Within (or Without) the Humanities
Humanities disciplines have attributed enormous importance to scholarly publishing, but have not yet sufficiently examined the changes of circumstance which have re-formed the nature and interests of the publishing industry in recent decades.
Sauer, Geoffrey. Society for Critical Exchange (1999). Articles>Publishing>Assessment>History
#26638
Putting A/B Testing in Its Place
Measuring the live impact of design changes on key business metrics is valuable, but often creates a focus on short-term improvements. This near-term view neglects bigger issues that only qualitative studies can find.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2005). Articles>Web Design>Assessment
#13115
Quality Basics: What You Need to Know to Get Started 
Quality can be an intimidating topic for many technical communicators. Quality is rarely covered in technical communication courses. Most technical communicators do not have access to a Quality guru to help them understand the concepts and available options. Because of this, many technical communicators avoid using Quality concepts that could help improve their documents.
Atkinson, Jennifer M., Donald S. Lenk, Amy Perry, Ralph E. Robinson and Roberta A. Rupel. STC Proceedings (2001). Presentations>TC>Assessment
#10326
Quality Improvement: Benchmarking, Document Design, and the STC 
Document-designers have been subjected to close customer scrutiny without having the luxury of industrial standards. To withstand this intense judgment-based evaluation and overcome it by generating customer excitement, the document-design community has a powerful tool at its disposal. Benchmarking provides the means to exceed customer expectations and by inference, anticipate their expectations through developing best-in-class practices. Achieving customer excitement is a natural and expected outcome.
Sheffield, Michael L. Technical Communication Online (1997). Design>Information Design>Assessment
#13684
Quality Management: Fire Fighting to Fire Prevention
Discover how a development team is transitioning from fighting to preventing fires by incorporating Quality Assurance (QA) testing as an ongoing part of the development process, rather than saving it for the finished product. Understand the pain of testing and rework at the end of the cycle, as well as the struggles during the transition to up-front QA. How did tools and processes change? What does the team have planned for the future? Learn by example how you, too, can make this transition in your company and start PREVENTING fires, not FIGHTING them.
Downs, Christina M. STC Proceedings (1999). Presentations>Management>Assessment
#30558
Quality Measurement for Documentation: Different Tools for Different Needs
The world of technical communication continues to search for a reliable information metric that is easy to apply and widely accepted. Although that goal eludes us for the moment, we can make a choice among competing metrics based on an understanding of their strengths and weaknesses, and appropriateness for different audiences. Two kinds of metrics, ordinal scale metrics and surface feature metrics, seem to meet many of our needs. The differences between them lie in their choice of measurements and the methods of applying the measurements.
Hunter, Claudia M. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Documentation>Quality>Assessment
#30091
Technical communicators continuously battle with the problem of obtaining an objective and comparable representation of a document's quality. While everyone agrees on the importance of this issue, no definitive work exists on determining or representing the quality of a document. As Toby Frost states, 'It may take a long time to establish a baseline for quality metrics; we don't have adequate mechanisms for measuring quality today.' A quality metric provides a method for tracking a document through completion, helps ensure quality deliverables, and provides an additional criterion for personnel reviews.
Mallory, Eric. STC Proceedings (1999). Articles>Writing>Assessment>Heuristic Evaluation
#14614
Karl Smart highlights several Web sites about quality and quality issues that technical communicators may want to browse.
Smart, Karl L. Intercom (2000). Articles>Information Design>Quality>Assessment
#29468
Quality Systems in Higher Education
Wiley shares the components of a quality system in higher education and offers examples of quality-management efforts undertaken by institutions of higher education.
Wiley, Ann L. Intercom (2007). Articles>Education>Assessment
#31498
Quantifying the Impact of Communication on Your Organization’s Bottom Line
Consider this scenario: You’re making a pitch to the CEO that calls for more focus and resources on internal communication, citing recent studies that demonstrate that organizations with more effective communication have higher performance. And you get this response: “Great, I’m sold on the importance of communication. Tell me which communication channels have the greatest impact on our bottom line, and put together a strategic plan that will lead to increased revenues.” Did you get a little more than you bargained for? While the CEO’s request certainly sounds challenging, rest assured that it can be done.
Williams, John A. Communication World Bulletin (2004). Articles>Business Communication>Assessment
#20570
Provides an effective method for checking the content-accuracy, completeness, and logical order of a document. Notes that this technique is not a substitute for more careful review when time and the document's importance allow.
Hays, Robert. Technical Communication Online (2003). Articles>Editing>Assessment
#30168
Rating Classroom Presentations: Does Prior Acquaintance Matter?
This study examines the effects of acquaintance on performance ratings. Models of cognitive processes in performance rating support the expectation that raters will judge ratees with whom they are acquainted differently from ratees with whom they are not acquainted. To test that expectation, 104 Air Force officers enrolled in Master's Degree communication methods courses watched four video-taped briefings and rated each briefer's performance. This population more accurately represents supervisors in the work force than previous studies. Results show that raters more accurately rated those with whom they were acquainted.
Freda E. Stohrer, James R. Van Scatter, Guy S. Shane, and Jennifer R. Burnett. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>Education>Assessment
#18646
Given our current economic conditions, it is proving very difficult for a lot of technical communicators to find new positions as either contractors or full-time employees. It is important now, more than ever, to look closely at the core skills we have and can offer our future employers. Almost all of you that I have talked to are technical communicators who develop online help and hardcopy documentation. You are writers, editors, and managers. Many of you understand the intricacies of the tools of the trade like Adobe FrameMaker and RoboHelp from eHelp. You understand the products so well that you can troubleshoot the problems faster than the product support teams.
Bates, Michael P. STC Northeast Ohio (2001). Careers>TC>Assessment>Adobe RoboHelp
#29876
Re-Thinking Assessment: Assessment Measures for Online Writing Classrooms
Because of the increase of fully online courses within the University setting, educators need to look more deeply at the teacher and student readiness and success in these environments. Assessment measures, such as self-assessments of technological comfort and online-specific course evaluations can assist with this examination. I will focus this discussion on observations and collection of interview data at Bowling Green State University using second semester fully online writing courses.
Monske, Elizabeth A. STC Proceedings (2004). Articles>Education>Online>Assessment
#31606
I know from some years running a reading clinic in the United States that you can make more progress if you start the students out on relatively easy reading material so the the students can read the materials with some comprehension and success. But how do you tell these African instructors how to select “relatively easy” reading materials in technical English? The answer - use a readability formula.
Fry, Edward. Impact Information (2006). Articles>Writing>Assessment>Formulas
#23350
Uses 1950s-era arithmetical formulas to assess the readability of written text in Microsoft Word documents or online websites.
#19413
Readability Formulas and Writing for the Web
There is a considerable amount of information published on the Web that is intended to be read by someone. There is evidence that much of the information may be too hard to read and understand for typical readers. Baker, Wilson and Kars (1997) reported that the readability scores of most articles in the 'Health Reference Center' ranged from 10th to 14th grade levels. Another study (Graber, Roller and Kaeble, 1999) included text-based information from commercial, academic and government sites. They found that the reading material averaged the 10th grade level. In a more recent study, a group of researchers (D'Alessandro, et.al., 2001) conducted readability analyses of pediatric patient education materials on the Web, and concluded that the information was not written at an appropriate reading level for typical users.
Bailey, Robert. Web Usability (2002). Articles>Writing>Assessment>Formulas
#22826
Readability Formulas Have Even More Limitations Than Klare Discusses
A literature review reveals many technical weaknesses of readability formulas (when compared to direct usability testing with typical readers): they were developed for children's school books, not adult technical documentation;they ignore between-reader differences and the effects of content, layout, and retrieval aids on text usefulness; they emphasize countable features at the expense of more subtle contributors to text comprehension.
Redish, Janice C. 'Ginny'. Journal of Computer Documentation (2000). Articles>Writing>Assessment>Formulas
#22827
Readability Formulas in the New Millennium: What's the Use?
While readability formulas were intended as a quick benchmark for indexing readabilty, they are inherently unreliable: they depend on criterion (calibration) passages too short to reflect cohesiveness, too varied to support between-formula comparisons, and too text-oriented to account for the effects of lists, enumerated sequences,and tables on text comprehension. But readability formulas did spark decades of research on what comprehension really involoves.
Schriver, Karen A. Journal of Computer Documentation (2000). Articles>Writing>Assessment>Formulas
#22829
Readable Computer Documentation
A retrospective look shows earlier advice still relevant to both predicting and producing readable writing. For prediction, refined readability formulas with stronger criterion passages and updated familiar -word lists have appeared, although the computerization of readability tests sometimes encourages misapplying or misinterpreting them when screening text. For production, attention to sentence construction, word characteristics, and information density remains relevant to both drafting and revising computer documentation for readability, especially since reading speed and reader preference often interact with comprehension in practical settings.
Klare, George R. Journal of Computer Documentation (2000). Articles>Documentation>Assessment>Usability
#11838
Reader's Questions: Severity Scales
It is important for the Usability Engineer to attend meetings where development and product managers review bugs, decide if the severity is appropriate, and choose which bugs will be fixed. I've been able to convince development and product management to consider some usability bugs as critical bugs.
Wilson, Chauncey E. Usability Interface (1999). Design>Usability>Assessment
#29059
What is the influence of demographic variables such as gender and educational level on the reader feedback collected under the plus-minus method? To answer this question, an analysis was made of the problems detected in four public information brochures. The average amount of feedback per participant did not vary among the four brochures, but the severity of the problems did. Male participants mentioned more problems than female participants, but the problems detected by female participants were on average more severe. Highly educated participants detected more problems than participants with a lower level of education. No differences in problem types mentioned were found between male and female participants, and only one difference was found between the two educational levels: Highly educated participants focused more strongly on the structuring of information. In general, brochure characteristics had more effect on the types of feedback collected than the two demographic participant characteristics.
de Jong, Menno D.T. and Peter Jan Schellens. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2001). Articles>Editing>Assessment>Gender
#21426
You've all heard of TiVo. Sure you have. TiVo is the hard-disk video recorder that automatically records all of your favorite shows. Then there's ReplayTV, the other leading brand. Late fall 2001, ReplayTV crossed over a line that should never have been crossed, one that threatened the future of consumer products.
Tognazzini, Bruce. Nielsen Norman Group (2002). Articles>User Interface>Ethics>Assessment
