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To assess the context in which information is presented to readers and to know what demands information being presented makes of an audience, IBM designed three procedures to help gather such material. First, customer sites are visited to interview representatives from the intended audience and see the environments in which the information will be used. Second, task analyses for new products and functions are performed before a single word is written. Third, interim drafts of manuals are tested on subjects who are similar to the target audience. This last procedure should incorporate a usability edit, not at the end of the writing effort but throughout the writing cycle. In usability edits and tests in the IBM Human Factors Laboratory, volunteer subjects are presented with a task, the written material, and the system. Subjects are left alone but are watched from behind a oneway glass as they verbalize their way through the process. Results have shown that subjects experienced gaps a...

Graphics research history shows that some topics have been studied heavily while others have been almost entirely neglected. Furthermore, researchers have used many different methods of defining and measuring effects such as legibility and comprehension, and this, together with vagueness in reporting, makes it difficult to compare studies and draw reasonable conclusions. Current research is needed to validate past studies and to bring to light reader reactions. This current research should (1) be user and task specific; (2) study interaction effects and optimum concentrations; (3) employ prolonged periods of time and lengthy passages; (4) study the interaction of familiarity with the effectiveness of a device; (5) focus on the gaps in existing research, such as paper, ink, binding, color, and illustrations; (6) report clearly how the research is conducted, what is measured, and what is found (statistical results); and (7) show which methods measure which attributes most effectively....

Over the past several y,,ars, technical communicators have been struggling to change some of the stylistic traditions inherited from scientific discourse. Rhetoricians, writing teachers, and psychologists all agree that the use of analogy and first-or second-person sentence construction make for more effective communication than the absence of analogy and the use of the impersonal third person. However, established conventions and standards sometimes preclude inserting these stylistic devices into our material. With only an intuitive feel for the use of language, our arguments lack the substantive basis with which to change the standards. In order to examine the discrepancy between theory and practice, an experiment with computer documentation was conducted to measure the effects of analogy and second-person construction in learning, and another to assess whether the,-* same stylistic devices were annoying to subject matter experts. The use of analogy made it easier for subjects to recall information without being cued; however, it had no effect on cued recil1 (recognition). Computer programmers were indifferent to the use of analogy (not hostile), and they preferred the second person sentence construction to the third person. (Author/JB)

Technical writers involved in an institutional =citing project need some way of viewing the raw material globally before writing. In this way they can build a framework which can be used for different types of information. This is accomplished through a task analysis meeting that highlights the following preparatory steps prior to writing: (1) determine the scope, (2) define the audience and identify the reader, (3) determine the purpose, (4) determine the task or tasks, and (5) determine the constraints--posed by the system or by how the document will be used. The purpose of the task analysis meeting is, therefore, to elicit from the subject matter experts information that is procedurally and user oriented. The goal of the meeting is to have participants generate tasks that fit into four columns: action, audience, information requirements, and result. The information generated in this collective exercise is more comprehensive than what can be extracted through individual interviews...

The Information Technology (IT) professional's user experience has evolved both in terms of software tool attributes and the process workflow within which the IT tasks exist. Based on user research with IT professionals over the past two decades, including ethnographic observational field studies, focus group discussions, and hands-on user tests with analyses of errors and perceived complexities, this paper presents a set of hypotheses about user interface design aspects that across the industry most impede the workflow of typical IT professionals. It discusses how this relates to typical information workers' behavior, as well as what steps we as tools and systems designers can take to better support the IT professionals' user interface needs.

Over the past several y,,ars, technical communicators have been struggling to change some of the stylistic traditions inherited from scientific discourse. Rhetoricians, writing teachers, and psychologists all agree that the use of analogy and first-or second-person sentence construction make for more effective communication than the absence of analogy and the use of the impersonal third person. However, established conventions and standards sometimes preclude inserting these stylistic devices into our material. With only an intuitive feel for the use of language, our arguments lack the substantive basis with which to change the standards. In order to examine the discrepancy between theory and practice, an experiment with computer documentation was conducted to measure the effects of analogy and second-person construction in learning, and another to assess whether the,-* same stylistic devices were annoying to subject matter experts. The use of analogy made it easier for subjects to recall information without being cued; however, it had no effect on cued recil1 (recognition). Computer programmers were indifferent to the use of analogy (not hostile), and they preferred the second person sentence construction to the third person. (Author/JB)

Graphics research history shows that some topics have been studied heavily while others have been almost entirely neglected. Furthermore, researchers have used many different methods of defining and measuring effects such as legibility and comprehension, and this, together with vagueness in reporting, makes it difficult to compare studies and draw reasonable conclusions. Current research is needed to validate past studies and to bring to light reader reactions. This current research should (1) be user and task specific; (2) study interaction effects and optimum concentrations; (3) employ prolonged periods of time and lengthy passages; (4) study the interaction of familiarity with the effectiveness of a device; (5) focus on the gaps in existing research, such as paper, ink, binding, color, and illustrations; (6) report clearly how the research is conducted, what is measured, and what is found (statistical results); and (7) show which methods measure which attributes most effectively. (Author/DF)

Technical writers involved in an institutional =citing project need some way of viewing the raw material globally before writing. In this way they can build a framework which can be used for different types of information. This is accomplished through a task analysis meeting that highlights the following preparatory steps prior to writing: (1) determine the scope, (2) define the audience and identify the reader, (3) determine the purpose, (4) determine the task or tasks, and (5) determine the constraints-posed by the system or by how the document will be used. The purpose of the task analysis meeting is, therefore, to elicit from the subject matter experts information that is procedurally and user oriented. The goal of the meeting is to have participants generate tasks that fit into four columns: action, audience, information requirements, and result. The information generated in this collective exercise is more comprehensive than what can be extracted through individual interviews. Performing this type of task analysis before writing a single word may make the difference between designer-based material and usable, reader-based material. (HOD)