Students Advise Fortune 500 Company: Designing a Problem-Based Learning Community    

This article describes the process of planning and implementing a problem-based learning community. Business and communication students from a large university in the Western United States competed in teams to solve an authentic business problem posed by a Fortune 500 company. The company's willingness to adopt some of their recommendations testified to the professional quality of their final product. This experience gave students an opportunity to apply communication concepts to a business problem. They learned how to make vital connections between theory and practice and between shared knowledge and shared knowing. In the process, students grew personally and professionally.

Brzovic, Kathy and S. Irene Matz. Business Communication Quarterly (2009). Articles>Education>Business Communication>Case Studies

Incorporating Reflective Practice Into Team Simulation Projects for Improved Learning Outcomes    

The use of simulation games in business courses is a popular method for providing undergraduate students with experiences similar to those they might encounter in the business world. As such, in 2003 we were pleased to find a classroom simulation tool that combined the decision-making and team experiences of a senior management group with a fun, realistic, and competitive plot: We selected the Business Strategy Game, an online simulation for use with the textbook Crafting and Executing Strategy: The Quest for Competitive Advantage. We then enhanced the student experience by blending the simulation game with reflective writing tools that help students recognize how team experiences and decisions ripple though an enterprise.

Wills, Katherine V. and Thomas A. Clerkin. Business Communication Quarterly (2009). Articles>Education>Business Communication>Case Studies

How Did This Happen?

Even a newspaper like The Times, with layers of editing to ensure accuracy, can go off the rails when communication is poor, individuals do not bear down hard enough, and they make assumptions about what others have done.

Hoyt, Clark. New York Times, The (2009). Articles>Editing>Collaboration>Case Studies

The Worst Interface Ever

Never, ever, ever let systems-level engineers do human interaction design unless they have displayed a proven secondary talent in that area.

Tognazzini, Bruce. Nielsen Norman Group (2004). Articles>User Interface>Case Studies

寄付のユーザビリティ：非営利団体および慈善団体へのオンライン寄付が増加

ユーザー調査の結果、非営利団体のウェブサイトはコンテンツが著しく不足しており、寄付に踏み切るための判断材料に欠けていることがよくあることがわかった。

Nielsen, Jakob. Usability.gr.jp (2009). (Japanese) Articles>Web Design>Usability>Case Studies

Lessons from a Street-Side UX Designer!

This example offers some insights into how ‘the arousal of the feeling of trust’ is dependent on the design of features and overall user experience, for the business transaction to kick off. The learning can be particularly applied in the context of online business portals and websites.

Katre, Dinesh S. Journal of HCI Vistas (2007). Articles>User Experience>Case Studies

Cultural Ethnography: A Brief Report

There is a lot of curiosity about ethnography in design among designers, especially the academicians. Context study or field study are the other similar activities discussed in the domain of usability. I happened to have carried out an ethnographic assignment almost a decade ago. I thought, sharing that experience (good or bad) will be useful to many.

Katre, Dinesh S. Journal of HCI Vistas (2007). Articles>Usability>Ethnographies>Case Studies

User Persona: Its Application and The Art of Stereotyping

There is so much discussion about user personas, but very few examples are reported on Internet with some evidence of its actual usage. So here is a persona that I explored long back. It was useful!

Katre, Dinesh S. Journal of HCI Vistas (2007). Articles>User Centered Design>Personas>Case Studies

The Public Presentation of a Hybrid Science: Scientific and Technical Communication in "Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Assessment of the British Government" (2002)    

A recent British national intelligence-based Assessment (2002) illustrates how one government agency communicated science to serve its policy goals. This article analyzes some of the values that drive science, public policy, and national intelligence, and traces how those values affected the Assessment writers' goals and communication strategies. Through close reading of the Assessment's foreword and first section, this study shows how the writers shaped scientific and technical information to satisfy their disciplines' values and to naturalize their "proper perspective" on the policy case. Further analysis of similar documents will extend current research on scientific rhetoric, multidisciplinary collaborative writing, and public communication.

McKenzie, Keisha. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2009). Articles>Scientific Communication>Government>Case Studies

Risk Communication, Space, and Findability in the Public Sphere: A Case Study of a Physical and Online Information Center    

This article uses theories of space and findability to analyze a public information center as an example of multi-modal risk communication. The Yucca Mountain Information Center is an informational space created by the Department of Energy to inform the public about the proposed nuclear waste repository planned for Yucca Mountain, Nevada. As a public space, the Center uses fact sheets, posters, and three-dimensional displays to make arguments about the storage of nuclear waste; we argue that the physical space, text, displays, and online space are all elements of risk communication. We offer a new way to read these elements of risk communication and suggest potential opportunities for public agency.

Nagelhout, Ed, Julie Staggers and Denise Tillery. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2009). Articles>Scientific Communication>Risk Communication>Case Studies

Creating an Anthology on Editing

Pulling together New Perspectives on Technical Editing, an anthology on editing, was a complex, yet exhilarating experience. The process fell into four stages.

Murphy, Avon J. Corrigo (2009). Articles>Editing>Technical Editing>Case Studies

DITA Conversion: How it Saved us 100 Grand, for Starters--A Case Study in DITA for Globalization

How a multi-national, regulated medical device company planned its migration to a DITA CMS by identifying stakeholders and defining personas, establishing a high-level process and system requirements, developing a content model, and figuring out what to do with legacy documents.

Linton, Jennifer. DCL (2007). Articles>Information Design>DITA>Case Studies

Now That We've Got Dita Up and Running, What's Next?

Focuses on an overall process identification methodology and its eight phases, and documents both the technical and business processes undertaken to successfully launch the new CMS/TMS system, called GEM (Globalization and English Management System). Includes what CaridianBCT learned from previous efforts and describes the various approaches and pilot phase that were adopted to support the new GEM system in future efforts.

Linton, Jennifer. DCL (2008). Articles>Information Design>DITA>Case Studies

Pragmatic DITA on a Budget  

A small documentation team working on a tight budget can now use the tool ecosystem enabled by the DITA standard to create the sophisticated content that previously required long and expensive projects. The author spent just nine person-weeks over three years to replace a custom XML system with a DITA system based on a combination of off-the-shelf software, authoring conventions, and custom scripts.

Baptista, Joaquim. ACM SIGDOC (2008). Articles>Documentation>DITA>Case Studies

Performing Sustainable Development Through Eco-Collaboration: The Ricelands Habitat Partnership    

In this article, the authors demonstrate this point through a genealogy and textual analysis of the Ricelands Habitat Partnership (RHP), an eco-collaboration between the rice industry and environmental advocates in California's Sacramento Valley. Articulated here as a story of enemies becoming friends, the RHP gives life to a vision of more (if not perfectly) sustainable agriculture, where sustaining business and the natural environment can go hand in hand. The authors argue that sustainable development (like democracy or other abstract concepts) becomes 'real' for businesses and for society at large through local enactment.

Livesey, Sharon M., Cathy L. Hartman, Edwin R. Stafford and Molley Shearer. JBC (2009). Articles>Business Communication>Environmental>Case Studies

Redesigning Your Own Site

Fond as I was of my site’s current incarnation, I’m a one-person show and my website is my main act. I couldn’t risk letting it stagnate.

Alcantara, Lea. List Apart, A (2009). Articles>Web Design>Redesign>Case Studies

Business Information Through Spain’s Chambers of Commerce: Meeting Business Needs    

From different public and private requirements, mechanisms have been set in action that allow for companies to obtain information in order to make decisions with a stronger foundation. This article is focused on the description of an entire information system for the business world, developed in the realm of the Chambers of Commerce of Spain, which has given rise to the creation of an authentic network of inter-chamber information. In Spain, the obligatory membership of businesses to the Chambers of Commerce in their geographic areas, and therefore the compulsory payment of member quotas, has traditionally generated some polemics, above all because many firms have not perceived a material usefulness of the services offered by these Chambers. Notwithstanding, the 85 Chambers currently existing in Spain, as well as the organization that coordinates them – the Upper Council or Consejo Superior de Cámaras de Comercio – and the company created expressly to commercialize information services online, Camerdata, have developed genuinely informative tools that cover a good part of the information demands that a business might claim, and these are described here.

Cañavate, Antonio Muñoz and Pedro Hípola. Business Information Review (2008). Articles>Business Communication>Case Studies>Europe

Engaging with Social Media in the Business and Intellectual Property Centre (BIPC) at the British Library    

In this article, Neil Infield shares with us the way in which the BIPC has successfully used social media to reach its diverse audience of inventors, entrepreneurs and small business owner.

Infield, Neil. Business Information Review (2009). Articles>Business Communication>Social Networking>Case Studies

Using Research: Supporting Organizational Change and Improvement    

Explores the importance of organizational research as a tool to support business change and improvement. Describes a tried and tested research methodology that has been used within public and private sector organizations and can be easily adapted by in-house research and information services. Demonstrates how research can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of learning and development products and services. Includes a case study from a central government department that investigates the role of the line manager in learning.

Wheeler, Stephanie. Business Information Review (2009). Articles>Research>Business Communication>Case Studies

I Got Dragons and Tweets in My Documents

There’s a place for a lighter touch in much of the online documentation we write. It’s a delicate balance. On the one hand, it’s important that the writing style does not annoy or offend the reader and does not detract from the content. We also need to be aware of people whose first language is not the one we’re writing in. On the other hand, the occasional touch of humour or personality can focus the reader’s attention onto the page.

Maddox, Sarah. ffeathers (2009). Articles>Documentation>Wikis>Case Studies

Directed Research Groups as a Means of Training Students to Become Technical Communication Researchers    

Describes the activities of a university “directed research group,” highlighting interesting tensions that emerged therein. Asserts that actively exploring such tensions with students creates a rich learning environment.

Larson, Jerrod, Colin Birge, Yi-Min Huang, Brook Sattler, Jennifer Turns and Jessica M. Yellin. Technical Communication Online (2009). Articles>Education>Research>Case Studies

Rearchitecting a Small Software Company's Information

This study describes what SDI Global Solutions did to help a small software company (hereafter referred to as SSC) to provide them with a basic infrastructure to support their information needs. We have broken up this study into sections titled, Company Description, Business Requirement, Starting State, Project Scope, Implementation, and Ending State. The purpose of the study is to provide guidance for similar projects to ensure the same or greater success.

Web Design Dev (2009). Articles>Information Design>Case Studies

Connecting the Dots of User Experience    

The article presents a point of view about analyzing and designing the user experience within pervasive networks made of distributed services and applications, where the user is the primary actor who freely and opportunistically connects and activates the system components following an activity-driven process. A digital content case study is used to outline the main characteristics of this scenario and to introduce a tool for user experience modelling and designing. From the application of this model are proposed some considerations about how the design process could change to support this vision.

Brugnoli, Gianluca. Journal of Information Architecture (2009). Articles>Information Design>User Experience>Case Studies

Designing the User Experience at Autodesk: A Case Study in Large-Application Usability Benchmarking

As a user researcher with a primarily qualitative background, I have to confess that when I was asked to conduct a usability benchmark study on AutoCAD, I was not exactly jumping out of my chair. Frankly, I was wary of the quantitative emphasis of the method and the proposal to reduce the whole user experience down to a single number. I was also more than slightly nervous about designing a benchmark study for a product as complex as AutoCAD.

Dawe, Melissa. Designing the User Experience at Autodesk (2009). Articles>Usability>Testing>Case Studies

Speed Racer: Collaborative Sketching Saves the Day

Give 3 designers 4 weeks to create multiple conceptual designs for 8 features and what do you get? If they are team of innovative designers you might get the designs and a new process. If they are a team of committed designers you might get the designs and an improved collaboration. We were lucky. We got all three.

Sherman, Melissa. Designing the User Experience at Autodesk (2009). Articles>Collaboration>Graphic Design>Case Studies