A Study of the Effectiveness of Information Design Principles Applied to Clinical Research Questionnaires    

This study investigates the effectiveness of information design principles and feedback-based usability testing in the development of clinical questionnaires, with the goal of increasing the amount of data collected in the Breast Cancer Lymphatic Mapping Database at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute. It finds that although both the Control and Study forms were generated using the same form design software, the Study form developed using information design principles collected significantly more data than the Control form developed by a systems analyst. The article observes that information designers face conflicts between the needs of users, general information design guidelines, constraints of the software, and misunderstandings by medical researchers and health professionals over the role of information designers.

Zimmerman, Beverly B. and Jessica R. Schultz. Technical Communication Online (2000). Articles>Information Design>Usability

Review: Submit Now: Designing Persuasive Web Sites  

The group that would probably benefit most from reading Submit now is marketers, particularly entry-level marketing managers or marketing students. The book does a fine job of connecting basic concepts of persuasion to designing Web sites that will motivate the four different types of Internet shoppers discussed earlier. I could, however, foresee how experienced marketers could find the information contained in this book too basic for their needs.

Coleman, Colleen. Technical Communication Online (2003). Articles>Reviews>Writing>Marketing

Taking a Cue from the Health Professions: Applying the Logical Framework to Strategic Planning    

Strategic planning is asking business-defining questions, finding answers that reflect the company's priorities, and then turning answers into activities. A tool for planning commonly used in public health intervention programs is a matrix called the logical framework; it has been modified here for use in strategic planning. The logical framework is a practical means of defining and appraising the relationships between activities and results.

Thivierge, Bethany. Technical Communication Online (1997). Articles>Management>Project Management>Biomedical

Taking Usability Testing to the Field    

Know your audiences, comes the repeated message for technical communicators and in response, more and more technical communicators have turned to usability testing to learn more about their readers and to improve their communications. Technical communicators produce manuals, instructions, and warnings for hand tools, medical equipment, lawn mowers, tractors, pesticide sprayers, and thousands of different products. Most manuals, instructions, and products can benefit from usability testing. This case study provides guidance for technical communicators who are novices to usability testing. The lessons we learned can be of value to technical communicators beginning their first usability testing on a wide range of technical communications and products.

Zimmerman, Donald E., Michel Lynn Muraski and Michael D. Slater. Technical Communication Online (1999). Articles>Usability>Testing>Methods

Task Support, Reference, Instruction, or Collaboration? Factors in Determining Electronic Learning and Support Options    

With so many forms of performance support available, one of the challenges for technical communicators and performance technologists is choosing the right form to meet the performer's need for assistance in a given situation. This article is intended to summarize and classify these resources and to aid professionals in determining when and how to employ them. First, it describes the theory of situated learning, which underlies the selection of a form for supporting performance. Then it suggests how to apply this concept to the selection of forms. Last, it offers some suggestions for forms to use in a given situation.

Gery, Gloria J. Technical Communication Online (2002). Articles>Content Management>EPSS

Task Support, Reference, Instruction, or Collaboration? Factors in Determining Electronic Learning and Support Options    

Describes the theory of situated learning, which underlies the selection of a form for supporting performance. Suggests how to apply this concept to the selection of forms.

Gery, Gloria J. Technical Communication Online (2002). Articles>Education>Genre

Teaching Documentation Writing: What Else Students--and Instructors--Should Know    

Discusses knowledge, problem-solving strategies, and desktop publishing skills students need to learn about documentation writing. Describes a course that provides these skills. Also applies to in-house training programs.

Boiarsky, Carolyn and Michael Dobberstein. Technical Communication Online (2003). Articles>Education>Documentation>Technical Writing

Teaching Documentation Writing: What Else Students—and Instructors—Should Know    

A course in computer documentation writing needs to provide instruction in problem-solving skills as well as help students learn to transfer their knowledge and processes from one task to another if it is to truly prepare students for working in the constantly-changing environment of the computer field. Purdue University Calumet has developed a unique, complex course that, in addition to providing instruction in the conventions and the rhetorical context in which manuals are written, provides students with the content and procedural knowledge, problem-solving strategies, and desktop publishing skills they need to adapt to the evolving nature of this field.

Boiarsky, Carolyn and Michael Dobberstein. Technical Communication Online (1998). Articles>Education>Writing

Teaching the Proposal in the Professional Writing Course    

Professional writing instructors and their colleagues spend a good deal of time writing, conceiving, or living off the fruits of proposals. They depend on proposals for released time, research funds, conference reimbursement, and in some cases, a significant part of their livelihoods. What they may fail to realize is that their students also live and work in proposal-heavy worlds at work, in school, or within the context of hobbies and interests. Of course, most college students do not see themselves as writers. They are not comfortable with their own writing; consequently, they do not understand the importance and power of proposals until they are given the opportunity to explore the form and its utility in their lives.

Wahlstrom, Ralph. Technical Communication Online (2002). Academic>Course Materials

Technical Assistance for Writers in the Workplace: Some Heuristic Uses of Professional Writing Techniques in a Multiauthor Writing Process     

Linda Flower's work serves as the basis for devising writing technical assistance in three case studies of multiauthor reports. One major barrier to audience-based writing, planning—and, hence, producing readable text—is the writer-based structure embodied in a project's work program. Writing technical assistance can help displace this structure by various means, including collaborative writing. But the interaction between the two activities basic to writing—creating specific audience-based goals and devising a new hierarchical structure for content knowledge—remains unclear in theory and in practice.

Baker, Linda. Technical Communication Online (1996). Articles>Collaboration>Workflow>Writing

Review: Technical Communication  

Rebecca E. Burnett covers all the topics you'd expect in an introductory textbook for technical communicators. And she covers them thoroughly.

Campbell, Alexa. Technical Communication Online (2003). Articles>Reviews>Textbooks>Technical Writing

Technical Communication as Business Strategy: How Changes in Discursive Patterns Affect the Value of Technical Communication in Cross-Functional Team Settings    

Business seldom views technical communicators' contributions as offering strategic thinking and services. Companies tend to view technical communicators as tactical and technical, rather than strategic and creative. Consequently, often in cross-functional development settings the ideas and recommendations of technical communicators are not valued in the same way that ideas from business strategists, marketing, or other fields are. This paper details a case study in which the role of an information architect, a title that more and more technical communicators use to describe themselves, becomes valued by a design firm's client and by the firm itself as strategic business advantage. I explain why the role of the information architect increased in value and how the increased value changed the job description. I look at how blending knowledge occurs through shifts in terminology, imitation of another field, and selling new concepts.

Norton, David W. Technical Communication Online (2000). Articles>Collaboration>Workflow

Technical Communication Consulting as a Business    

To be a successful technical communication consultant requires expertise in two critical areas: technical communication and running a small business. The main reason many technical communicators (and many technical professionals in general) fail as consultants is that they focus exclusively on the first aspect and neglect the second. As employees, they are accustomed to keeping current with new and emerging trends in technical communications. However, as employees they have never needed to learn or maintain currency with the myriad of issues involved in running a small business. It requires a balance of both aspects to be successful as a consultant or a contractor.

Poe, Stephen D. Technical Communication Online (2002). Careers>Consulting

Technical Communication in an Altered Technology Landscape: What Might Be    

Technical communicators create support products that mediate between people and their computers. However, human-computer relations of the future may not require the reading of manuals or even direct manipulation of the interface. These relations may be delegated to agents, computer surrogates that possess a body of knowledge about something and about the user in relation to that something. A new class of applications may suggest information relevant to the user's situation, proactively offering advice that the user didn't know to ask for. Technical communicators will have continuing roles in enabling users because of their knowledge of the ways that people want to learn from machines. The skills required for technical communicators in the next computer revolution will change at least as much in the next 5 years as they have in the past 5 years.

Zimmerman, Muriel. Technical Communication Online (2001). Design>Human Computer Interaction

Technical Communication in Cyberspace    

This introduction to a special issue of Technical Communication focuses on how the profession is functioning in cyberspace. It represents a range of topics: teaching about the Internet and via the Internet; working within organizational constraints; thinking rhetorically when creating a Web page; and remembering the international issues inherent in using the Internet. The technology, as this special issue illustrates, has great potential, and we should keep our eyes open for the possibilities and promises of teaching and practicing technical communication in cyberspace.

Gurak, Laura J. and Christine M. Silker. Technical Communication Online (1996). Articles>TC>Online

Technical Communication in Cyberspace: Report of a Qualitative Study    

Technical communication is changing due to the prominence of the Internet and related technologies. This article reports the results of a qualitative study of how technical communicators are using the Internet. The study was conducted using surveys, phone interviews, and focus groups. Respondents indicated that the Internet is playing a significant role in the work practices of technical communicators. On the positive side, communicators find the Internet helpful for contacting customers, obtaining updated technical information, and publishing online documentation. On the negative side, communicators encounter company resistance and are frustrated with issues of company security and the lack of order for accessing Internet information. These features present new opportunities and challenges for the profession, including issues of training, interface design, working within other departments, and entirely new job titles and positions.

Silker, Christine M. and Laura J. Gurak. Technical Communication Online (1996). Articles>Internet>TC

Technical Communication, Engineering, and ABET's Engineering Criteria 2000: What Lies Ahead?    

The tools engineers use have changed so dramatically over the past 30 years, universities and colleges have adapted by offering their engineering students classes in the latest technologies so they are better prepared to enter the engineering workplace. Engineers often feel less prepared, however, for the nontechnical demands of their jobs. They may possess the technical skills necessary to solve a machine problem in a manufacturing line but feel less prepared to tell the owners of the line what needs to be changed and why. As a result, industry and business have complained to universities and colleges (and particularly to engineering programs) that engineering students are not ready to take on the nontechnical challenges of modern engineering work. And because engineering programs rely on industry and businesses to hire their students, they have taken these demands seriously.

Williams, Julia M. Technical Communication Online (2002). Academic>Education>Engineering>Assessment

Technical Communication, Knowledge Management, and XML    

Technical communicators can expand their roles into the realm of knowledge management if they augment their already considerable skills with a basic understanding of XML coding and a critical understanding of how this applied tool can allow us to shape, store, and transfer knowledge. To do this, they can start by examining how the use of tools and their relationship to the materials, assumptions, and methods of the scientific community contribute to the culture of research activity and then transferring these ideas to their workplaces. Additionally, they need to understand that knowledge management systems can include tacit knowledge. In their roles as knowledge managers, they can teach organization members how they can help design, access, and contribute to databases; alert them to new information as it is made available in knowledge repositories; and work to facilitate an environment of trust and sharing that allows knowledge management systems to flourish.

Applen, J.D. Technical Communication Online (2002). Design>Knowledge Management>XML>Metadata

The Technical Communicator's Role in Initiating Cross-Functional Teams    

This article focuses on cross-functional teams in software development environments. While very formal approaches to cross-functional teams exist, this article focuses on less formal approaches based on existing literature and case studies. Technical communicators are ideal candidates for implementing cross-functional teams on an informal level. Because of this, they can also be excellent catalysts for initiating formal cross-functional approaches in their organizations, even if their organizations have never used cross-functional teams before.

Marchwinski, Theresa and Karen Mandziuk. Technical Communication Online (2000). Articles>Collaboration>Workflow

Technical Communicators and Online Help: The Developers' and Users' Perspectives    

Who is writing online help, technical communicators or developers? This was one question explored through recent Australian research. This is an important question for technical communicators because while communication of technical information is acknowledged to be an area of expertise of technical communicators many computer systems are delivered with online help written by someone not trained or experienced in the area of writing. Recent Australian research, conducted by the author as part of a PhD thesis, examined the roles of technical communicators in the design and development of information systems, including the role of writing online help. The research sought the views of developers, users and technical communicators. One aspect of the research explored the contribution of technical communicators to the development of online help. The results strongly demonstrate that the usability of online help is affected by who writes it.

Fisher, Julie L. Technical Communication Online (1999). Design>Information Design>Online

Technical Communicators as Managers in the Informated Workplace    

Advances in technology have caused great change in the workplace, including changes in the relationships among managers and employees. Workers and managers alike require education and training to work effectively in the new 'informated' environment, an environment in which computers can be used not only to automate work processes, but also to provide vast quantities of information about processes, products, and people.

Scott, Michon. Technical Communication Online (1996). Articles>Management

Technical Documents as Information Systems    

Information is the stock in trade for all technical communicators, yet the concept of information as it applies to technical communication has not been well defined. This article presents an understanding of information that, it is hoped, will promote the development of a unified, theoretical base for the practice of technical communication. The concept of information is examined from the perspectives of mathematics, engineering, biology, and human behavior.

Sherwood, Duane E. Technical Communication Online (1997). Design>Information Design

Technical Editing as Quality Assurance: Adding Value to Content    

Technical editing is sometimes perceived to be simply a matter of grammar checking and proofreading. Perhaps fast-paced development environments, which often leave little time for editing functions, contribute to this perception—or, more precisely, this misperception. The levels-of-edit systems have helped technical editors manage the editorial functions in these hectic environments by providing a 'framework within which editors can choose appropriate editorial tasks for a particular document'. Recently though, technical editors are focusing even more on content editing, collaborating closely with technical writers on developing high-quality information. Taking this progression one step further, technical editing is beginning to be viewed as a quality assurance activity.

Corbin Nichols, Michelle, Pat Moell and Mike Boyd. Technical Communication Online (2002). Articles>Editing>TC

The Technical Editor as Diplomat: Linguistic Strategies for Balancing Clarity and Politeness     

An essential component of technical editors' work is to convey to writers how their documents would benefit from revision. This task is potentially sensitive, given writers' intellectual and emotional investment in the documents they have created. The sensitive nature of the editing process is clear in Rude's (2001) advice to students of technical editing: '[A]void words that suggest inappropriate editorial intervention, especially change ' (p. 43). Rude's advice suggests an awareness of the difficulty inherent in imposing oneself into the creative process of another person. Because of the defensiveness they might encounter in writers, editors must be cognizant of how they carry out their jobï¿the language they use to convey necessary changes to writers' documents. The language editors use can either facilitate good working relationships with writers or degrade those relationships.

Mackiewicz, Jo M. and Kathryn Riley. Technical Communication Online (2003). Articles>Editing>Collaboration