Best Practices in Managing Knowledge: Benchmarking Knowledge Management Within and Between Organizations

Benchmarking comprises prioritisation of strategic improvement need (the why), measurement (the what) and practices (the how). Re-measure tracks performance improvement.

Searles, Bruce and Fiona Stewart. APQC (2006). Presentations>Knowledge Management>Assessment

Evaluating DITA-Enabled Content Management Systems  

This presentation describes how authoring DITA topics and managing those topics in a content management system (CMS) will contain translation costs while improving overall information quality. This is not a recommendation for any particular product. It is a guide to how one group built their candidate list and computes return on investment.

Adams, Ann H. XML.org (2007). Presentations>Content Management>DITA>Assessment

How to Evaluate Your Own Web Site

Is your web site in need of improvement, but you don't really know where to start? Have you changed your web site recently, and want to make sure that it's actually been improved? Now you can perform a professional evaluation of your web site yourself. Here's how.

Content Strategy (2008). Articles>Web Design>Assessment

Measuring Content Strategy: Not a Piece of Cake

Since there was no way to measure the effect of the new content in terms of conversions, it wasn’t really worth doing. And this, my friends, made me sad.

Words Are Delicious (2009). Articles>Web Design>Content Strategy>Assessment

Conversing About Performance: Discursive Resources for the Appraisal Interview    

Despite its acknowledged importance, performance appraisal (PA) continues to be one of the most persistent problems in organizations, especially the appraisal interview (AI) component of PA, for which many techniques have been attempted with only mixed success. The authors conceptualize the AI as a “conversation about performance” and draw on an extensive review of the communication literature to identify the discursive resources available to the organization, the appraiser, and the appraisee for improving the preparation for and conduct of a conversation about performance. The authors' conceptualization extends research on PAs by identifying methodologies and conceptual underpinnings with connections to interpersonal, organizational, and mass communication scholarship.

Gordon, Michael E. and Lea P. Stewart. Management Communication Quarterly (2009). Articles>Management>Assessment

Symbolic Capital and Academic Fields: An Alternative Discourse on Journal Rankings    

During my 30 years in the academy, I have seen universities subject to increased demands for accountability. These demands from both internal and external publics translate into added attention to quality assessment. To evaluate teaching, universities measure student learning outcomes and rely on standardized scores as indicators of teaching effectiveness. To assess research productivity, departments document publications that appear in top-ranked journals and presses and track dollar amounts raised through external funding. This focus on evaluation, in turn, lends new credence to independent ranking systems that provide unbiased indices of quality. An unintended consequence of these academic norms, however, is the pattern of treating standards as objective indices rather than practical guidelines.

Putnam, Linda L. Management Communication Quarterly (2009). Articles>Research>Publishing>Assessment

Journal Rankings and Academic Research: Two Discourses About the Quality of Faculty Work    

Peer evaluation is the hallmark of the academic profession. Hiring, advancement, and reputation in the university setting have traditionally depended on a scholar's work as judged by his or her colleagues. The emerging trend toward journal ranking as an indicator of research accomplishment poses an important challenge to professional academic standards and to higher education generally because ranking schemes diminish the professoriate and degrade knowledge work. We argue that when scholarly journals are ranked in terms of their desirability as publication outlets they take on the characteristics of commodities.

Hogler, Raymond and Michael A. Gross. Management Communication Quarterly (2009). Articles>Publishing>Research>Assessment

Determining What Individual SUS Scores Mean: Adding an Adjective Rating Scale  

The System Usability Scale (SUS) is an inexpensive, yet effective tool for assessing the usability of a product, including Web sites, cell phones, interactive voice response systems, TV applications, and more. It provides an easy-to-understand score from 0 (negative) to 100 (positive). While a 100-point scale is intuitive in many respects and allows for relative judgments, information describing how the numeric score translates into an absolute judgment of usability is not known. To help answer that question, a seven-point adjective-anchored Likert scale was added as an eleventh question to nearly 1,000 SUS surveys. Results show that the Likert scale scores correlate extremely well with the SUS scores (r=0.822). The addition of the adjective rating scale to the SUS may help practitioners interpret individual SUS scores and aid in explaining the results to non-human factors professionals.

Bangor, Aaron, Philip Kortum and James Miller. Journal of Usability Studies (2009). Articles>Usability>Assessment>Standards

The Effect of Culture on Usability: Comparing the Perceptions and Performance of Taiwanese and North American MP3 Player Users  

A study of how 23 Taiwanese and North American subjects use a consumer electronic product shows that culture strongly affects the usability of the product. Survey data shows that North American users had much lower levels of user satisfaction and perceptions of effectiveness and efficiency than Taiwanese users. On the other hand, results on performance were unclear, indicating similar levels of effectiveness for both cultural groups and conflicting results on levels of efficiency.

Wallace, Steve and Hsiao-Cheng Yu. Journal of Usability Studies (2009). Articles>Usability>Assessment>International

IAに起因するタスク失敗は相変わらず不利益

タスク成功率は、2004 年のユーザビリティ統計と比べると大きく上昇した。しかしそれにもかかわらず、ユーザがタスクを完遂できないケースがあり、その原因の大半は情報アーキテクチャ(IA)の出来の悪さにある。

Nielsen, Jakob. Usability.gr.jp (2009). (Japanese) Articles>Information Design>Usability>Assessment

Improving the Practice of Document Review

Document reviews should be used as a tool to build quality into research and technical reports. In most handbooks for professional writers, review is recommended for clear and simple reasons: it is intended to identify problems and suggest improvements that enable an organization to produce documents that accomplish its goals and meet readers’ needs.

Cuppan, Gregory P. Brainery.net (2009). Articles>Documentation>Quality>Assessment

Why Is It That Teams Do A Poor Job of Post-Writing-Project Analysis?

Project teams may recognize that reviews are not working well, though the may not understand why. A valuable solution is to conduct ”lessons learned” analysis following the end of the project. Too often, though, post-writing-project analysis receives little commitment or meaningful effort, but why?

Cuppan, Gregory P. Brainery.net (2009). Articles>Documentation>Collaboration>Assessment

Testing Search for Relevancy and Precision

Despite the fact that site search often receives the most traffic, it’s also the place where the user experience designer bears the least influence. Few tools exist to appraise the quality of the search experience, much less strategize ways to improve it. When it comes to site search, user experience designers are often sidelined like the single person at an old flame’s wedding: Everything seems to be moving along without you, and if you slipped out halfway through, chances are no one would notice. But relevancy testing and precision testing offer hope. These are two tools you can use to analyze and improve the search user experience.

Ferrara, John. List Apart, A (2009). Articles>Web Design>Search>Assessment

Beyond Goals: Site Search Analytics from the Bottom Up

While goal-driven analysis is wonderfully useful, we’ll explore a different, “bottom-up” approach that relies on pattern analysis and failure analysis to help you understand your users’ intent in qualitative ways that complement the top-down approach.

Rosenfeld, Louis. List Apart, A (2009). Articles>Web Design>Search>Assessment

Typographic Design Patterns and Best Practices

To find typographic design patterns that are common in modern Web design and to resolve some common typographic issues, we conducted extensive research on 50 popular websites on which typography matters more than usual (or at least should matter more than usual). We’ve chosen popular newspapers, magazines and blogs as well as various typography-related websites. We’ve carefully analyzed their typography and style sheets and searched for similarities and differences.

Martin, Michael. Smashing (2009). Articles>Web Design>Typography>Assessment

Running an Efficient CMS Evaluation and Procurement Process: Hands-on Tips, Insider Knowledge and Advice

Why is getting the process right, so important? Value for money, project success, Return on investment.

Tintori, Piero. SlideShare (2007). Presentations>Content Management>Software>Assessment

How Do Experts Assess Usability Problems? An Empirical Analysis of Cognitive Shortcuts    

Discusses the cognitive shortcuts that may hinder technical communicators in empathizing with readers. Explores the issue of judging the severity of problems detected in a document evaluation. Demonstrates how cognitive shortcuts may affect technical communicators' capability to assess the likelihood and impact of reader problems.

Lentz, Leo and Menno D.T. de Jong. Technical Communication Online (2009). Articles>Usability>Assessment>Cognitive Psychology

Goal-Based Scenarios    

Discusses the potential of goal-based scenarios as an approach to designing online learning environments. Explores practical applications of goal-based scenarios for online training. Presents a procedural approach to designing a goal-based scenario.

Padmanabhan, Poornima. Technical Communication Online (2009). Articles>Education>Assessment

Recovering Delivery for Digital Rhetoric    

This article develops a rhetorical theory of delivery for Internet-based communications. Delivery, one of the five key canons of classical rhetoric, is still an important topic for rhetorical analysis and production. However, delivery needs to be re-theorized for the digital age. In Part 1, the article notes the importance of delivery in traditional rhetoric and argues that delivery should be viewed as a form of rhetorical knowledge (techne). Part 2 presents a theoretical framework for “digital delivery” consisting of five key topics—Body/Identity, Distribution/Circulation, Access/Accessibility, Interaction, and Economics—and shows how each of these topics can function strategically and heuristically to guide digital writing.

Porter, James E. Computers and Composition (2009). Articles>Rhetoric>Assessment>Online

Analysis of Team Design Review

Every other team meeting, three team members get 30 minutes each to talk about projects they are working on, and they get to demonstrate some of the cool things they are integrating into the project. As a team, we look at the project and both learn from what they’ve done, and make suggestions on how they might improve the project.

Pehrson, Paul. Technically Speaking (2009). Articles>Collaboration>Graphic Design>Assessment

How To Respond Effectively To Design Criticism

Unfortunately, not many people enjoy criticism. In fact, many have developed a thick skin and take pride in their ability to brush it off and move on. However, despite its negative connotation, criticism often presents an excellent opportunity to grow as a designer. Before you can respond effectively, you need to understand what those opportunities are.

Follett, Andrew. Smashing (2009). Design>Collaboration>Assessment

Website Testing Tools

Here is a collection of some testing tools that we have compiled to aid your testing handily grouped into categories. Look out for our reviews of some of these tools coming soon.

Testing Web Sites (2009). Articles>Web Design>Assessment>Testing

BrowserShots

Generates screenshots of how websites appear at 800x600 and 1024x768 resolution in six commonly used web browsers.

BrowserShots. Resources>Web Design>Assessment>Web Browsers

Design Reviews and Posting Without Answers

In our design review sessions, a couple of members from our eight-person team share what they’re working on and ask questions about challenges they’re facing. We provide feedback and critique their project. If you’ve ever participated in a creative writing group, the design review works similarly. Team members use common sense and experience to guide their questions and reviews. Somewhat in contrast to a creative writing group, though, you don’t have to bring a finished piece to share.

Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2009). Articles>Graphic Design>Assessment>Collaboration

Towards an Architectural Document Analysis    

Information architecture (IA) and document architecture (DA) provide two, partly overlapping, perspectives on the creation of document structures. This article suggests how the architecture of a document can be analysed from these two perspectives. Literature on IA and DA has been examined in order to identify central ideas that are of relevance for analysing the architectures of digital documents. The article contains an overview of how IA and DA have been used and defined. The article shows how a model for analysing documents as sociotechnical artefacts can fruitfully draw on parts of the theoretical and practical complexes of IA and DA. The aspects that are identified as particularly important from IA are organisation systems, navigation, and labelling. From DA, logical structures, layout structures, content structures, and file structures are all applicable aspects. It is discussed how these various aspects may be interpreted in order to support an analysis of the organising principles of documents.

Francke, Helena. Journal of Information Architecture (2009). Articles>Information Design>Assessment