|
SIGDOC Newsletter
June 2007 :: Volume 8, Number 2
Features
- Looking for your input on "What is Design of Communication?" (by
Rob Pierce)
- What is Design of Communication? and Clay's
Suggested Papers (by Clay Spinuzzi)
- Twitter, Texting, and Some Thoughts on the Design of
Communication (by Clay Spinuzzi)
- Note from T.R. Girill
- Job roles in the design of communication (by Rob Pierce)
- User assistance and information development
- Design of communication job skills
- Job role descriptions
Looking for your input on "What is Design
of Communication?"
By Rob Pierce
In the previous Newsletter
feature article, I shared some thoughts about
what exactly falls within the bounds of what is termed “Design
of Communication.”
I also stated my interest in possibly working toward creating a book
on DOC as a certain Dr. Winograd did for DOS (Design of Software). Starting
with the articles I’ve written for the SIGDOC newsletters each
quarter for the past seven years, I am seeking input from the membership
to point me to the best representative papers in our proceedings or in
other publications that embody what DOC encompasses.
I received input from
some of our members that begins to chart some of the areas not always
given prominent attention plus some pointers
to papers that cover some of the more foundational areas in the design
of communication.
Clay Spinuzzi sent information both on what is DOC with
some articles for particular categories plus an example of a new
area of communication
design and use. I also received a note from T.R. Girill on the need
for an information content type for Examples.
back to top
What is Design of
Communication?
By Clay Spinuzzi
Last SIGDOC, I was in a panel discussion with three other SIGDOC long-timers
when someone in the audience asked: What is the design of communication
anyway? After all, the papers in that conference were far-ranging, covering
everything from web accessibility to communication theory to geographic
information systems. What thread ties all of these together?
The answer
is a little complicated.
Until a few years ago, the DOC in SIGDOC stood
for documentation: SIGDOC's topic was simply computer documentation.
The SIG focused on the sorts
of questions asked by those who write and produce computer documentation.
To get a sense of what these questions were, just scan the titles from
the 1982 SIGDOC conference proceedings: "User manuals: What does
the user really need?"; "Documentation production from a formal
database"; "Improving documentation."
But as the field
of computer documentation matured, it also changed. For one thing,
computer documentation began to be written and developed
by specialists, and they formulated more specific questions. For another
thing, the problem of computer documentation invited a lot of interest
from various fields, and we saw an influx of people from different
fields applying a wider set of methodologies and frameworks to make sense
of
computer documentation. In addition, the field began to be supported
by academic programs in technical communication -- undergraduate, MA,
and eventually PhD programs. Finally, the technologies and genres for
delivering documentation changed: the massive sets of ring-bound documents
that were popular in 1982 gave way to small manuals included in consumer
software, then to online help, then to web-delivered documentation.
These changes meant that the SIG no longer focused strictly on computer
documentation -- or that the problems solved by SIGDOC members went far
beyond documentation. By 2003, the last year that DOC stood for "documentation," conference
papers bore titles such as "Seeing the project: mapping patterns
of intra-team communication events"; "Research methods for
revealing patterns of mediation"; "Scenario-based and model-driven
information development with XML DITA"; and "General hospital:
modeling complex problem solving in complex work systems." Such
projects certainly touched on computer documentation still, but they
were about
more. They focused on the technologies that allowed people to communicate
that documentation; they examined ways that people used multiple communication
sources; they described field studies that included but did not revolve
around computer documentation.
Their focus had moved, in short, to the
design of communication: how communication patterns and technologies
develop and function, and how
people intervene in order to improve them. And that is why the following
year, 2004, saw DOC turned into an acronym. That acronym stands for
a new name that is perhaps a little overbroad, but certainly more accurate
than the old name. May it be used for some time to come.
Clay’s
Suggested Papers
Some papers that best represent important
facets of "DOC," from
the most recent SIGDOC (2006), by category:
- Understanding documentation use: "Why don't people read the manual?";
David G. Novick, Karen Ward; Pages: 11 - 18
- Designing web standards
and transforming web content: "Taming the inaccessible web"; Simon
Harper, Sean Bechhofer, Darren Lunn; Pages: 64 - 69
- Understanding writing
and communication activity: "Visualizing writing activity as knowledge
work: challenges & opportunities"; William Hart-Davidson, Clay
Spinuzzi, Mark Zachry; Pages: 70 - 77
- Researching communication: "Research ethics and computer science:
an unconsummated marriage"; David R. Wright; Pages: 196 - 201
- Automating
documentation and communication: "ICODE: enabling the static checking
of programs and their documentation"; S. N. I. Mount, R. M. Newman,
R. J. Low; Pages: 121 - 128
back to top
Twitter, Texting, and Some Thoughts on the Design
of Communication
By Clay Spinuzzi
Although my favorite conference is SIGDOC (yours too, right?), I do
sometimes go to other conferences. Last March, I attended one right here
in Austin: South by Southwest Interactive, the technology component of
South by Southwest (SXSW). But the most striking part of the conference
-- for me and evidently for many others as well -- wasn't a presentation
or an exhibit. It was Twitter.
One of the first things I noticed when walking
into the lobby was a big screen showing icons floating from left
to right, displaying thought
bubbles. This display was courtesy of Twitter,
a social networking site that consists entirely of redirecting IMs
and text messages to group
displays. In practice, this means that people would text or IM their
thoughts to Twitter during the sessions and those thoughts would
show up on the big screen in the hall outside. They would also be
broadcast
to friends of those people.
Great, but what on earth is it useful for?
In a convention context, it could have been useful if I had been
trying to coordinate activities
with a small cadre of friends. Suppose that my friends and I are attending
different sessions. If my session is not good, I text that fact to
Twitter. If it's great, I text that instead. The result: we can loosely
coordinate
swarming without making disruptive voice calls or individually setting
up texting lists. (SXSWi is much looser than SIGDOC about changing
rooms.)
But there's an analogous but much more direct application. A couple
of nights later I was at a vendor party and I started getting Twitter
traffic reporting on the various parties. The traffic mostly had to do
with (a) which parties were lame and (b) which parties had free drinks.
Let's call it a "beer swarm." And this use was even better,
since texting is much preferable to voice calls in a loud party context
and since these texts are applicable to a far wider range of friends.
You
can imagine other uses -- in church, in workshops and seminars, anywhere
that you might want to keep a cohort silently coordinated. Since
Twitter is more of a communications platform than a service per se,
we are beginning to see applications in lifestreaming, auto-event
notification,
and professional work as well as more mundane uses. I agree with Peter
Merholtz that those uses could be radically expanded if Twitter were
to include event handling (think
conferences) as well as differential permissions.
Keeping all this
in mind, here's a quick set of uses for Twitter or
similar services. If you're at Twitter, think hard about these; if
you're not, think about creating a similar service that meshes SMS, IM,
and
WWW.
Private (cohort) uses include:
- Collaborative time logging. See what's going on with others working
on the same project. This use could contribute to overall awareness
in a
more fine-grained way than Basecamp or other collaborative project
management systems do.
- Events management. So you're coordinating a conference and you want
to keep apprised of important occurrences while you're in a session?
Put
your phone on vibrate and enable Twitter.
- Swarming. The World Trade Organization protests in Seattle were
coordinated by cell phone. Similar street-level political action
could be coordinated
more effectively, and awareness could be more distributed, by something
like Twitter.
Public uses include:
- Workstreaming. Not just for ego, but to communicate work and work
habits to potential clients. This use would be important especially
for contractors
and small businesses.
- Clubbing, church, or other activities in which it's hard to
coordinate due to noise and distance constraints.
When we talk about the design of communication, we need to keep our
ears to the ground for services such as this one. Twitter is hardly
the only
player in this field -- Jaiku, Tumblr, Dodgeball, and other offerings
exist -- and services such as these are going to constitute new
infrastructures on which we can design and build communication. It'll
be interesting
to see what people are doing with these a year from now.
back to top
Note from T.R. Girill
By T.R. Girill
I just read with interest about your book plan on "what is design
of communication [really]" and your request for relevant past SIGDOC
papers (March 2007 SIGDOC Newsletter) that might help clarify this question.
My
suggested paper is:
T. R. Girill, "Example Elaboration as a Neglected Instructional
Strategy," SIGDOC Conference Proceedings 2001, pp. 39-42.
I think
that this sheds some (admittedly offbeat) light on the communication/information
design discussion for three reasons:
- empirical grounding
The paper notes a long series of clever cognitive-psychology experiments
that have gradually revealed how people learn from examples (and hence
how to design examples that help people learn).
- historical depth
Example design has been a professional issue at least as far back
as Fleming and Levi's Instructional Message Design (1978) and it
is a recurring
theme among instructional designers today (and that is one strand
of general info design).
- cultural breadth
The paper notes that example elaboration has implications not only
for traditional computer documentation but also for areas as diverse
as literacy
outreach and "constructivist" theory.
Precisely because this
topic is often overlooked in "grand" information
design discussions I think it deserves more attention from thoughtful
practitioners. And I'm pleased to report that while
last year (at this time) Google found about 40 references to this paper,
it now finds about 80.
In any case, best wishes with your book project.
T. R. Girill
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
trg@llnl.gov
back to top
Job roles in the design of communication
By Rob Pierce
The design of communication may be considered from a role-based conceptual
model rather than areas of research to study, by looking at the job roles
people perform in designing, developing, and delivering communication
of technical content. Most of the roles in the design of communication
include aspects of:
- Information design
- Visual design
- Information development
- Information architecture
- Tooling and building of output (including ID Process and
tooling (db storage and content management of assets). Determining
and planning the
use of metadata (for db storage and retrieval, and for Topic based
Help, metadata, and search strategies outputs/deliverables) may also
be part
of the tooling and build specialists working with the IA.
- Usability and user experience testing
- Accessibility conformance (for different disabilities or
impairments, with considerations for each platform or user interface)
User assistance and information development
Information Development (ID)
includes many disciplines and tools for explaining technical concepts
or producing task-oriented instructions.
Though technical writing may be the most common job role within ID,
it is only one of many facets of ID and DOC. For example, an animation
or
a picture may be the best way to explain how something works, in which
case, the DOC and ID involve no actual technical writing.
Developing
Information might be defined to include multiple types of media (text,
images, or animation), while technical writing would use
only a subset of those tools (though it would be the most commonly
used tools within this discipline, since many if not most ID individuals
are
technical writers today). As the discipline evolves, many believe
that the emphasis will shift from technical writing towards content management
(particularly as product documentation moves from book metaphor to
online information).
back to top Design of communication job skills
People who design communication possess an array of skills, and use
different ones depending on their job role. Some of the basic skills
that apply
to all roles in the design of communication are the ability to...
-
Perform audience & task analyses
Analyze existing statistical and empirical data as well as direct customer
feedback to determine the skill level, educational background, work habits,
recommended skill levels, accessibility needs, etc. of the target audience
for the product information. Analyze the needs, work habits, everyday
tasks and typical problems of the audience for the product under consideration.
Develop a complete set of descriptions for tasks and subtasks, based
on this analysis. May operate with a cross-disciplinary team.
- Maintain product knowledge
Maintain an understanding of how to use the product being documented.
At the higher skill levels, you should be able to teach all aspects
of a product to a customer and work with customers to solve critical
problems.
- Develop information
Apply appropriate technical writing and tools skills as required
on particular teams. Analyze user needs, create document designs,
draft and write documents
and written education material supporting an application or software
product. Conform to standards of user interface and presentation.
- Develop information usability tests
Plan and prepare scenarios that test information deliverables, such
as printed documents, online documents, and Web pages and Web user
interfaces
(Web UIs). The scenarios should test documentation (individually
or collectively) for accuracy, applicability, retrievability, navigation,
and accessibility.
After testing, analyze test results to establish action plans.
Other skills
may be more role-specific.
Project management or team lead skills
- Plan technical information projects
Plan technical information projects (individual books, libraries, online
help, Web pages or Web UIs) based on an audience analysis and task
analysis. Work with appropriate resources to gather customer requirements and
interpret
specifications for a project. Write an information plan and ensure
its execution.
- Apply project management methodologies
Apply appropriate project management methodologies to supervising
a business undertaking from start to completion, managing assigned
resources,
meeting objectives, and reducing the risk of failure.
- Apply team leadership
Link team vision and goals to the corporate strategy. Lead change
and create a sense of urgency to meet challenges and implement
strategies.
Set direction, establishing goals and maintaining accountability.
Act as a leader of change. Translate plans into actions.
- Develop user requirements
Collect user requirements from potential end users through customer
meetings, customer focus groups, and marketing research.
- Use information development tools
Use tools to produce information in required media forms.
- Perform Competitive Analysis
Analyze competitive products in regard to usability, navigability,
interoperability, Web-presence, content and delivery of product
information. Use and
test these products to analyze their strengths and weaknesses. Analyze
customer satisfaction for these products. Convert competitive analysis
information
into specific product requirements.
back to top Graphic design skills
- Apply visual design principles
Apply principles of proportion, form, balance, figure-ground, spatial
tension, typography, and color theory to user-interface solutions.
Evaluate current visual design strategies and develop visual design guidelines
and specifications that detail all visual interface components and
systems.
-
Apply GUI concepts & principles
Understand the concepts and principles of a graphical user interface
(GUI) and apply them when designing and developing products. Have
knowledge of how users interact with product interfaces.
- Apply knowledge of graphic design
Demonstrate knowledge in applying graphic design skills. This includes
composition and layout, color design, graphics elements, typography,
and corporate design standards.
- Develop video presentations
Have a knowledge of videotaping techniques, equipment, and production
tools. Plan and set up the appropriate equipment for a videotaping
session. Plan the delivery method for a video presentation. Write scripts
for video projects. Edit raw footage. Add effects to video presentations.
Produce final video presentations.
-
Apply branding concepts & methodologies
Know the concepts and methodologies used to manage a corporate brand
and sub-brands and to differentiate and distinguish solutions in
a global marketplace.
- Apply audio to animation, video, or Web projects
Analyze and choose audio taping equipment and production tools. Plan
and set up the appropriate equipment for an audio taping session.
Plan the delivery method for audio used in a particular medium.
Tape, edit,
and produce audio for a presentation.
- Develop animation presentations
Knowledge of animation processes, techniques, and tools. Determine
the audience and look at their needs and requirements. Determine
the benefits
to the audience. Starting with a task analysis, plan the "look and
feel" for a particular animation, script an animation that meets
these requirements, design or select appropriate graphics for the
script; and develop and test a finished animation. Focus for this
skill may be
either on technical information or on graphic design.
- Design graphical elements for display screens
Knowledge of graphic design tools and techniques. Produce a graphic
element, set of related graphics or icons, or complete deliverable
that includes
layout for the Web or for an interactive online interface. Select
and use appropriate graphic design tools and products. Work with
others
to produce complex deliverables that include or feature graphic elements.
- Design tech illustrations for book metaphors
Knowledge of graphic design tools and techniques. Discuss requirements
with technical writers or developers to produce technical illustrations
(such as: graphical representation of complex networks, system
flow diagrams, wiring diagrams, or complex drawings of machine
interiors that
illustrate how to replace parts). Select and use appropriate graphic design
tools
and products. Work with others to produce complex deliverables
that include
or feature graphic elements.
back to top Design and usability skills
- Apply knowledge of human factors to design
Apply human factors principles and design techniques along with customer
requirements to the product frames, covers, and attachment enclosure
design.
- Develop prototype for user evaluation
Create a low- or high-fidelity prototype of a design for the purpose
of gathering user feedback.
- Perform statistical analysis
Use statistical methods and strategies to analyze data. Maintain
knowledge to choose appropriate statistical methods for a given
situation.
-
Apply design principles & guidelines
Understand design principles and guidelines and apply them when designing
and developing products.
- Use focus groups for HCI user design
Use focus groups to gather input for human computer interaction (HCI)
user design.
-
Apply knowledge of usability & UCD to design
Apply knowledge of usability best-practices and user-centered design
(UCD) methods to designing user interfaces. Design interactions
and workflows that effectively enable effective task completion, communicate
system
functions, prevent user errors, and satisfy user needs. Incorporate
the results of UCD requirements gathering methods such as interviews
or focus
groups, user validation sessions, and usability tests.
- Apply UCD process
Understand and apply the UCD process which involves a design team
with members from various disciplines who work together to design
or validate
a total product solution (emphasizing customer involvement).
- Design user scenarios
Design scenarios that are typical to what end users will do when
using the product. Typical end-user scenarios can be used by development,
test, and human factors to design and test the product.
-
Design user tasks & usability requirements
Understand, customize, and apply UCD techniques to define user segments
and understand their tasks, such as field observation, interviewing,
customer requirements and task specifications, focus groups, user
surveys and questionnaires, and task and user analysis.
back to top Globalization
skills
- Apply globalization principles
Understand and apply the standards and guidelines for writing code and
testing products that will be sold worldwide. For example, be familiar
with Unicode, Globalization imperatives, translation processes, and other
requirements.
- Advise on translation solutions
Provide advice on translation solutions. Understand translation solutions
and recommend actions that may resolve problems or issues. Have direct
user experience with translation solutions.
- Apply knowledge of global NLS requirements
Understand the National Language Support (NLS) requirements of the
different geographies around the world. Support clients, teams
and international
customers to ensure that they take into consideration the NLS requirements
during product selection, solution design, and creation.
- Apply knowledge of NLS tools and systems
Understand product requirements for NLS (translation, enablement,
and testing).
- Implement NLS text guidelines
Implement (NLS) guidelines for text. For example, avoid jargon, provide
glossaries, and write clear English text that is easy to translate.
Implement accessibility requirements/guidelines for information.
back to top
Job role descriptions
Mapping what DOC encompasses by job role or description certainly requires
a complete list of job role descriptions. Such a list is difficult
to complete and actual people will usually cover more than just one
or two roles. The following list is an attempt at a beginning for
a list of roles in the design of communication.
- User technologist
Apply a broad understanding of usability, industrial design, and human
factors to design, develop, and deliver information and interfaces
for software and hardware products.
- Information Developer
Complete information development projects, lead teams, and keep information
deliverables organized and on schedule. Design and develop elements
for user interface (UI), web, multimedia delivery, print, and other
linear and non-linear information deliverables.
- Information
Designer
Design information, based on a task and audience analysis and according
to the information plan. Verify the information design through
an iterative process that includes input from customers and other
disciplines.
- Visual
Designer
Design appropriate graphical elements for print, web, multimedia,
and other delivery.
- Information Architect
Define the information architecture that applies to published technical
information across all user assistance (from embedded assistance
to contextual assistance, information centers, books, and other
delivery
forms). Gather and respond to requirements, relating to the information
architecture, reconcile conflicting requirements, prioritize solutions,
and drive solutions to delivery.
- Usability Architect
Manage projects and leads teams. Design interfaces, navigation, and
retrieval methods for information to enhance ease of use. Work
with marketing
and product development teams to create specifications based on
user scenarios and personas.
- Industrial Designer
Use 3D modeling, software engineering, and an understanding of mechanical
human interfaces for work with designers, concept artists, mechanical
and software engineers, and other stakeholders to provide design solutions.
- Human Factors Designer
Provide leadership to inform and influence product design, provide
designers and engineers with technical information on human factors
engineering
integration and assist in driving product design and manufacturing
processes. Analyze usability data, creating insights, and drive
changes into the
design and development process.
- Information Planner
Manage projects and lead teams. Keep information deliverables organized
and on schedule.
- Multimedia Developer
Design and code appropriate elements for user interface (UI), web,
and multimedia delivery.
- Human-Computer Interaction Social Scientist
Lead and contribute to cognitive, social science, and human-computer
interaction research with impact to a company, or a professional community.
- Globalization specialist
Advise, design, and develop information deliverables for products
or applications so they can be used in a multilingual and multicultural
environment.
back to top |
