Usability Team Structures

There are two basic alternatives for structuring a usability/UCD group within an organization: members of the group can be centralized in a single department, or, members can be distributed among development teams.

. Usability Body of Knowledge (2007). Articles>Usability>Project Management>Collaboration

Use Body Language to Deliver Your Message  

One of your most effective means to communicate with team members may not involve words. See why senior editor Matthew Osborn believes body language can say it all.

Osborn, Matthew. TechRepublic (2003). Articles>Collaboration>Communication>Workplace

User Interface Should Be a Team Effort

Let's say you've got a clear set of requirements; the users have been defined, the features are associated with user tasks, marketing has done a competitive analysis and everything is good to go. Now what?

Ferlazzo, Ellen Lawson. Sprezzatura Systems (2002). Articles>User Interface>Collaboration

Using Customer Loyalty as a Platform for Teaching Written, Oral, and Team-Based Business Communication  

For many students, their role as customers is their most significant interface with the business world. They understand, at some level, the organizational importance of building customer loyalty for the success of companies. Building on that understanding can provide a context that amplifies their knowledge of business and reinforces the value of effective communication. Using the organizational goal of building customer loyalty as a framework for class discussion and activities gives instructors a real-world rationale that brings the world of business into communication courses. This fresh approach shows you ways to focus student writing, presentations, and group process assignments around the theme of evaluating and improving customer loyalty.

Timm, Paul R. Association for Business Communication (2004). Articles>Education>Writing>Collaboration

Using Design Games

Design games offer an alternative to traditional methods for brainstorming, collecting requirements, building team communication, modeling, and prototyping. Jess McMullin shows us how game principles and examples can complement existing methods.

McMullin, Jess. Boxes and Arrows (2007). Design>Collaboration>Methods

Using Multiple Communication Methods to Disseminate Information About Technical Research  

Technology transfer was a critical component of a research effort designed to develop, test, and evaluate new electronics assembly methods and cleaning techniques to eliminate the use of ozone depleting substances in military hardware manufacturing. Providing technical direction to small and mediumsized companies was critical to not only ensure that the electronic hardware produced conforms to military standards, but to also assure continued reliability of “mission critical” military and space electronic hardware manufactured with these new materials. Four technology transfer methods were initially targeted to transfer information, including (1) newsletters (2) courses, seminars, and conferences (3) bulletin boards, networks (4) satellite broadcasts.

Pierson, John and Leigh F. McElvaney. STC Proceedings (1996). Presentations>Collaboration>TC

Using Open Source Software to Design, Develop, and Deploy a Collaborative Web Site, Part 1: Introduction and Overview

In this series, follow along as the IBM Internet Technology Group team designs, develops, and deploys a closed community Web site using a suite of software that is freely available. The open source community provides various tools that, when plugged together, begin to create a useful development and production environment for complex Web applications. Using these tools as a foundation, we provide a methodology and set of enhancements to help you simplify the production process. Although customization is still necessary, this series shows you the tools and techniques to get relatively complicated Web sites up and running quickly using open source tools, including Drupal, MySQL, PHP, Apache, and Eclipse technologies. In this first article, you'll compare our approach with other software tools available and explore the enhancements we made.

Lewis-Bowen, Alister, Stephen Evanchik and Louis Weitzman. IBM (2006). Design>Web Design>Collaboration>Open Source

Using Open Source Software to Design, Develop, and Deploy a Collaborative Web Site, Part 2: Design for an Effective User Experience

In this series, you follow along as the IBM Internet Technology Group designs, develops, and deploys a closed community Web site using a suite of software that is freely available. Most of this series focuses on the actual implementation of the Web site, but this second article is a bit more generic. Read it to explore our design process, which can help you to create user experiences for applications, other interfaces, or Web sites. Part 1 discusses the team's requirements, compares several open source content management systems, and provides the rationale for choosing Drupal.

Lewis-Bowen, Alister, Stephen Evanchik and Louis Weitzman. IBM (2006). Design>Web Design>Collaboration>Open Source

Using Student Management Teams to Improve Technical Writing Courses  

In this article, the authors describe the student management team (SMT) teaching concept, used to build appropriate teamwork competencies, and explain how they implemented an SMT in their technical writing course.

Mutschelknaus, Ina L. and Mike Mutschelknaus. Intercom (2000). Articles>Education>Instructional Design>Collaboration

Using Tools in a Fast-Cycle, Flexible Environment: Solutions and Tips for Working with Associates at Other Locations   

Technical communicators today often work with associates at locations across the city, state, country or world. Electronic tools can facilitate communication. At Unisys Corporation, we use Portable Document Format (PDF) files, networked DocuTech printers, networked and shared PC hard drives, and Microsoft NetMeeting for training. We have also addressed human concerns about sharing equipment, files, and jobs by helping people find a positive motivation to share.

Peterson, Delores S. STC Proceedings (1999). Articles>Collaboration>Online

L'Utilisateur Moyen N'existe Pas

La conception d'un site est trop souvent ponctuée de ces réunions stériles où chacun cherche à défendre son point de vue persuadé de plaider la cause de l'utilisateur final. Mais il n'existe pas d'utilisateur moyen. Chaque utilisateur est unique. L'approche ergonomique permet d'adapter le site à l'usage qui en est réellement fait et ainsi de construire sur des bases objectives.

Nogier, Jean-Francois. Usabilis (2004). (French) Design>Web Design>Collaboration>User Centered Design

UX Community

To all of the bloggers who have written about UXmatters and people who have sent email messages and comments, thank you for warmly welcoming UXmatters to the UX community. We've been gratified by the high level of interest in and enthusiastic response to this Web magazine. There seems to have been some pent up demand for a publication that covers the breadth of user experience for digital products!

Gabriel-Petit, Pabini. UXmatters (2005). Articles>User Experience>Collaboration

UXnet Blog

News, events and other items of interest about user experience as an umbrella concept for collaboration and cooperation.

UXnet. Resources>Collaboration>User Experience>Blogs

UXnet Local Ambassadors: Building a Global Community One Locale at a Time

Over the past few decades, we have seen a steady expansion in the number of people who design or evaluate the quality of the user experience of digital products. The popularization of the personal computer in business and at home, the explosion of the Web and Internet applications, and the sudden presence of computer interfaces in everything from medical systems to voting stations to home entertainment centers has greatly accelerated the growth of the user experience (UX) movement.

Ferrara, John, Pabini Gabriel-Petit and Louis Rosenfeld. UXmatters (2006). Design>User Experience>Collaboration>Civic

The Value of Employee Participation in Strategic Planning    

A strategic planning and measurement planning project was undertaken by an 800-employee Maintenance department of a major Canadian gas transmission company to establish a stable direction and performance guide. Employee morale was so diminished from six years of constant reorganization and downsizing that the newly appointed vice-president was skeptical that the department would be able to meet its new goals unless a highly participative process was used. The project therefore was designed to use an input-reaction process between employees and managers to create a shared vision, strategic plan, and measurement system. Past projects of this nature had involved management personnel only and often goals were not achieved because few employees felt motivated by the "top-down" directives. This process produced a motivating vision, a highly doable performance plan, and a well-accepted measurement system within the allotted project schedule.

Holbrook Mort, Gail M. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2001). Articles>Management>Collaboration

Video: The Basis Of Video Conferencing

Video is a Latin word that means 'I see'. This technology includes, capturing, transmitting and replaying visual media. Video is actually the technique of turning a series of still images into moving images and the technology to do this varies through time. Video has come a long way from the black and white images that used to move much like a fast slide show just a couple of decades ago. Live video was made possible with the invention of the 'Vidicon', which was the heart of the video camera. This was first used in television cameras in the large television studios. Today, video cameras come in various shapes and sizes to match the work they are required to do. Small video cameras that fit into the palm of your hand are the most common and inexpensive cameras that produce very high quality images that can be stored on discs or video tape.

Shakir A. Ezine Articles (2007). Articles>Collaboration>Videoconferencing>Online

Virtual Communities and Team Formation

With the growth of global computer networks, virtual communities have become an important new way for people to interact. People are beginning to realize that networks are not only affecting the way businesses operate, but also our everyday lives [7]. One of the simplest examples of a virtual community is online chat. Through a chat application, one can participate in diverse discussions with numerous people, many of whom are strangers.

Zhang, Yanru and Michael Weiss. ACM Crossroads (2003). Articles>Collaboration>Online

Virtual Teamwork: Tools and Techniques for Working Together Online

Working together online can be as productive and satisfying as working together face-to-face, and, under some circumstances, even more so. Virtual teamwork is definitely more economical, especially when team members are not all in the same building. With the appropriate selection and use of freely available web-based technologies, virtual teamwork can even make face-to-face meetings more effective.

DeKoven, Bernard. Intranet Journal. Articles>Collaboration>Online

Visual Mapping: A Multidisciplinary Communication Technique  

As members of multidisciplinary teams, technical communicators often are faced with the challenge of understanding products before the writing process begins. As a result, teams of this nature must be able to communicate and verify their understanding, and revise that understanding accordingly as their project progresses. “Visual mapping” is a term used to describe a technique that uses off-the-shelf graphics or flowcharting tools to capture knowledge about products, to communicate that knowledge, and to collaborate with other members of the team. The technique is not limited to technical communicators, but can be used by anyone within a development environment, including management, developers, human factors engineers, technical communicators, and visual designers.

Hutcheson, Tracy D., Frederick Fusilero, Humberto Gutierrez-Rivas and Kevin M. McBride. STC Proceedings (2002). Articles>Collaboration>Methods

Visual Modeling Forum

The Visual Modeling Forum is a web community dedicated to visual modeling languages and tools. The visual modeling languages that we cover include industry standards, such as Unified Modeling Language (UML), the System Modeling Language (SysML), as well as emerging standards, such as Domain-Specific Modeling Languages and visual OWL for the Semantic Web.

Visual Modeling Forum. Resources>Collaboration>Community Building>UML

Visualizar la Interacción Social

La interacción social nos proporciona patrones visuales que nos ayudan a situarnos en nuestro entorno. En Internet, sin embargo, esto no es tan inmediato. Están empezando a aparecer visualizaciones que intentan paliar el problema.

Dursteler, Juan Carlos. InfoVis (2003). Articles>Collaboration>Visual Rhetoric

Visualization Strategies for Team-Oriented Problem Solving, Analysis, and Project Planning    

This article describes visualization methods used by many international organizations in the design of development projects. In this context, development projects means projects that are designed to improve the quality of life for people living in a developing country. During the project design workshop essential elements of a discussion and subsequent analysis are visualized as the discussion takes place and displayed to the participants. This visual record is kept in view through the whole period of the discussion. The visual methods of identifying, analyzing and structuring a problem dramatically improves the efficiency and effectiveness of the problem solving process and the quality of the final solution. The techniques enable a large amount of knowledge available within the group of participants to be collected quickly and allows complex problems to be taken through several steps of analysis.

Lewis, Paul. Technical Communication Online (1998). Articles>Collaboration>Project Management>Rhetoric

Vitalize Your People  

Organizations can do many things to vitalize their people. The Information Development organization at the IBM Corporation in Cary, NC, uses a closed-loop process in which we evaluate employee satisfaction, identify problems, and attempt to correct the problems (then reevaluate and so on). Your organization too can use this process to improve your employees' participation, involvement in your quality program, and morale.

Dean, Morris, Marva L. Richey, and Karl D. von Gunten. STC Proceedings (1993). Careers>Management>Collaboration

Voice Broadcast Messaging  

A new genre of computer-mediated communication has unceremoniously appeared in the marketplace, promising to solve countless problems that you probably never knew you had. The new technology, generically known as broadcast messaging, represents the convergence of fax, e-mail, short messaging service (SMS), and voice messaging in a single, Web-based front end.

Archee, Raymond K. Intercom (2004). Articles>Collaboration>Online>Voice