UE Process / Article 6. First Published in Aug. 2007, HCI Vistas Vol-III Author: Dr. Dinesh Katre

Of late there have been several e-mail inquiries from Technical Communicators expressing their interest in Usability Engineering (UE). Most of them ask, how and what can they contribute to UE activity? As I understand, many technical communicators are keenly interested in-
- expanding their role
- developing UE skills
- adding more value to the product
- ensuring satisfying user experience

There is a lot of excitement and optimism!

There are many articles on the web, which have deliberated upon technical communication (TC) and usability together. Apparently, there are two distinct regions of usability where technical communicators can contribute-

1. Usability of technical documents like on-line help, user manuals, etc.

2. The product’s usability engineering (UE)

Point 1. is very obvious and perfectly understandable. However, Point 2. is not very clearly defined. It raises some questions in my mind. Does it mean that technical communicators should get involved in the entire UE process (user modeling, requirements research, conceptualization, prototyping, interaction/ interface design, usability review and evaluation, usability testing, etc.)? If yes, it can be very demanding and exceeding too much beyond the role of a technical communicator. Our present discussion is more focused on how technical communicators can positively impact the product’s usability as technical communicators and not as full-fledged usability specialists. It is welcome, if a technical communicator wants to switch over. But one must remember the following-

The multidisciplinary rainbow of €˜usability€™ enriches
when each relevant discipline adds its own color to it.

If it is so, then what is the exact niche for technical communicators in product’s UE? I feel that the role of technical communicators in product’s UE should be a natural extension of the tasks they already perform. It is a fact that very often technical communicators identify the problems in user interface but unfortunately they have to compromise and fix those problems in the documentation. What should be done so that their voice is heard and given due recognition and space in UE?

Commonalities and overlaps between TC and UE

The process of ‘technical communication’ and the process of ‘usability engineering’ have many complementing activities. Gaffney says, usability and technical communication share the common goal of enabling people to use systems to complete their tasks. It must be acknowledged without hesitation that technical communicators rushed to assist the users much before usability engineers discovered themselves. They both work towards the same objective of helping the user.

Technical Communicator explains the product to users
and Usability Engineer attempts to design self-explanatory products.
If the design doesn’t speak up, Technical Communicators have to overwork.

Pankaj has already discussed about introvert products on HCI Vistas. There can be a lot of give and take between both the types of professionals. Clade, Millman have already explained how user personas could be applied in user documentation. Similarly, it is quite possible that usability practitioners may also build upon the activities and strengths of technical communicators. Let us briefly understand the key activities of technical communicators that are relevant to UE.

1. Understand the user requirements
Technical communicators have to conduct basic research before starting any documentation work. It involves audience assessment, seeking feedback from users about existing documentation, discussions with subject experts and developers, detailed study of the product.

2. Observe the product
Technical communicators have to understand each and every feature of the product, the functional characteristics and document it step-by-step. They have to also explain the concepts, processes and procedures from the reader’s perspective. This is possible only if they minutely observe the product.

3. Know the structure of user interface
Technical communicators have to structure the contents of user manual / interactive help so that the information becomes easily accessible and understandable. It is a prerequisite for them to study the structure of user interface. They have both micro and macro level exposure of the product. They have to understand the user requirements and organize the contents of user manual / interactive help. It involves design of navigation and considerations for efficient accessibility.

4. Create use-cases
They visualize the use-cases and write the tutorials as part of user manuals. It is very important to note that technical communicators not only have planer understanding of entire product but also the actual usage scenarios. They can distinguish between the powerful and most frequently used features. They know the places where user interface is very cluttered. Basically, they have an idea of what would affect the users most.

5. Communicate the product
They usually describe every feature in terms of its usage, location, appearance of buttons, icons, tooltips, instructions, terminology, functional and physical behavior in different situations, etc. They know the inter-dependencies between the features. They can judge the complexity of features based on the amount of explanation it requires to be understood by the users.

Technical Communicators as potential Usability Reviewers

The five activities mentioned above are quite complementing and similar to what most usability specialists do. I feel that Technical communicators also develop the foresight of where the shoe is likely to pinch the user. In my opinion, they can very much contribute to usability reviewing process as part of UE. They can surely spot the usability problems and may even suggest ways to overcome them. For those who are interested, this is the possible path of transition into usability engineering.

Technical Communicators are best positioned to identify-

• the problems pertaining to logical flow, layout and structure of interface

• the places where the interface is asking for unnecessary amount of clicks

• the parts of user interface which are hard to explain

• the visibility, accessibility and understandability of desired actions
  Here, they can apply the cognitive walkthrough technique for reviewing the usability.

• the inconsistencies in user interface design, non-compliances as per the standards, and review of selected heuristics such as direct control, speak user’s language, visibility of system status, etc. or any other technical heuristics specially defined for the product.

• the ambiguously worded labels, error messages, dialogues, instructions, etc.

• the performance shortcomings, functional errors

Minimal documentation as the measure of good design

Technical communicators can serve as the ‘barometer’ of user interface design. They can offer crucial feedback about design in terms of where it is excessive, complex, asking for lengthy documentation. They can identify such parts of the interface by asking an important question ‘can’t we design it better to reduce the complexity of documentation?’ They can pursue the principle of minimalism no just in the technical documentation but also in the design of product.

Usability experts and Technical Communicators should work towards mutually benefiting partnership in the interest of the product and the user.

All user advocates must gang up!

 

Start earlier in the development life cycle

Aberdeen Group report recommends integrating the documentation department with engineering; and kicking the documentation and design activities at the same time, earlier in development life cycle. Similar thing as what we propose in UE approach. Quesenbery has shown the possibility of involving technical communicators as part of User Centred Design (UCD) process. The trend of involving technical communicators in the downstream activities is perhaps the influence of Waterfall model. But in the iterative model, which is more popular today, they can team up with usability experts to review the user interface prototypes and contribute to every iteration. Of course, the technical communicators will have to learn new skills related to UE.

Contribution of technical communicators to usability engineering
will help in reducing the duplication of efforts,
optimization of resources, and maximizing the results.

References

Barry Millman, New Technical Writer: Use the Persona to Create the Most Useful Section of Your User Document
http://www.articlealley.com/article_136859_50.html

Cecily Farrar, Best-in-Class Companies Involve Technical Communicators in Early Stages, The Society for Technical Communication Newsletter, March/April 2007
http://www.stc-cdx.org/newsnotes/2007/03/a11

Introduction to Technical Writing/Documentation
http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=130249

Karen Molloy, Getting Involved in Product Usability as a Technical Communicator, Usability Interface, Vol 6, No. 3, January 2000
http://www.stcsig.org/usability/newsletter/0001-gettinginvolved.html

Pankaj Sapkal, Sensing of Meaning and Introvert Products, INS-26, HCI Vistas, Vol-III, Aug. 2007

http://www.hceye.org/HCInsight-Pankaj.htm

Steve Clade, Using Personas to Create User Documentation
http://www.cooper.com/insights/journal_of_design/articles/using_personas_to_create_user.html

Tami Kays, A Technical Communicator’s Role in Planning, Developing, and Maintaining a Corporate Intranet Site, Orange: A student Journal of Technical Communication, 2006
http://orange.eserver.org/issues/4-1/kays.html

Theresa Putkey, Using Technical Communication Skills in User Experience
http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view%2

Dr. Dinesh Katre presently heads the National Multimedia Resource Centre of C-DAC, Pune, India. He is the principle designer of many software products that deal with digital library, cultural informatics, e-learning, multimedia authoring and computer game design. He has special interest in the cognitive study of technology users and behavioral design of products. Journal of HCI Vistas is his community building initiative. It is meant to promote research oriented, multi-disciplinary thinking in the field of Human-Computer Interaction in India. This e-publication is open for usability practitioners and UX designers to publish short articles.

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