About the Usability SIG
Member Profiles: January 2001

Edited by Craig Marion, Membership Coordinator

• Arricka Brouwer
• Julia Brown
• Becky Franklins
• Helen Hopkinson
• Frank M. Marchak
• Rob Wolfe

Arricka Brouwer
TechnicalDocs.com, Inc.
www.technicaldocs.com
abrouwer@technicaldocs.com

When I entered college, I'd never heard of technical writing or usability. However, at the end of my sophomore year, I knew that I wanted to be a technical writer. It was one of the few careers that would allow me to use my writing skills, make money, and provide a means to remain current on the hottest computer-related technologies. After completing two internships and the coursework for my new academic focus, I graduated from Iowa State University with a degree in rhetoric and professional communication.

I got a job at a software company working with two other technical writers. Due to attrition and layoffs within my company, I soon became the lone technical writer. This proved to be quite challenging because the company was still producing the same number of products. I became concerned that my writing was suffering due to my hectic schedule, so I became interested in usability as a means of ensuring my manuals were actually useful to our customers.

When I conducted my first usability test, I had little formal training in the area of usability. I had read STC articles and I had take a few graduate level classes that introduced me to different testing methods and the writings of usability experts. In the middle of a particularly demanding project, I made the time to conduct a usability test. The feedback we received was invaluable. We made changes to the product that responded to the feedback of our evaluators and the product we shipped was significantly better than it would have been had we not conducted the usability tests. The company asked me to conduct usability tests for all future product releases and our customers and the press noticed and appreciated the changes we made to each subsequent release.

I'm looking forward to learning more about usability from STC and this SIG so I can continue to apply what I learn to my documentation. I've learned that no matter how well I think I write, good sentence structure doesn't necessarily make printed or online help usable.

Julia Brown
Coherent
Palo Alto, California
Julia_Brown@cohr.com

I stumbled upon the technical writing profession four years ago, soon after I moved to Palo Alto, CA. Being new to the area and not knowing what I wanted to do with my life, I took a temp job as an admin in a Marcom department. Within a few months, the job morphed into a technical writing position, and I've been there ever since. I had never even heard of technical writing before moving out here, but my new manager assured me that it is a great career path, particularly in Silicon Valley.

Unlike most companies in the area, we are not a software company; we manufacture medical lasers. My department is responsible for producing operator manuals for the end user. Therefore, my interest in usability is less about user interface than it is about the ease of using our manuals. We have no formal process for usability testing, so I've been taking classes and gathering information on usability, in an effort to build usability testing into the writing process.

When I'm not working or stuck in traffic, I enjoy spending time with my husband and two-year-old son. A typical toddler, Jake adds excitement and chaos to my otherwise orderly and mundane life. With any remaining spare time, I like to eat and sleep.

Becky Franklin
Jackson National Life Insurance
St. Louis, Missouri
bfrankli@apcc.com

Technical writing was originally a way for me to make money after graduating from a small liberal arts university with a degree in English and a minor in Biology. Unfortunately, the working world was not as kind to me as I would have hoped. After applying for several entry-level positions and coming up empty-handed, I applied to Miami University's technical writing graduate program and graduated last year with a Master's degree in Technical and Scientific Communication (MTSC).

When I first began the program, I hated it. We discussed usability problem-solving techniques in every class and my classmates and I started growing weary of the topic. I thought I had applied to a writing program, not a human factors program. I wondered what all of the fuss was about and I seriously doubted that any of what I was learning would apply to my eventual entry into that working world I longed to be a part of. By the time I finished the program, I was through with usability, but what I didn't realize is that I had internalized the lessons I had learned, and I was already operating under the principles that I thought I loathed.

Now that I am on the job, I wish that more people discussed usability problem-solving techniques. We have no formal usability process in place. I try to implement usability into my documentation projects, but I know that I fall short in providing what my users need. (If I could only ask them!). I have joined the Usability SIG for inspiration and new ideas. We are currently working on reorganizing our processes to include usability testing and we are planning to hire a usability engineer to help us. In the mean-time I read as much as I can, and I have attended a few seminars to keep me informed of ways to implement usability into our process and of ways to convince management of its value.

Helen Hopkinson
Industri-Matematik International
Stockholm, Sweden
heho@im.se

Like many other technical communicators, I haven't had a "natural" entrance into the technical communication world. I graduated from the University of Hull, England in 1995 with a degree in Scandainavian Studies (!) and two weeks after graduation started at a Swedish software company in Stockholm - which is where I still am today.

I have only recently "fallen into" technical communication after working as a translator, translation administrator and terminologist for the first 4 years. I have been interested in usability for the past couple of years, but have been fighting a losing battle in a product development department involved in projects that don't make time for anything other than coding. After attending the WinWriters Europe conference in London in May this year, I was inspired by many of the usability seminars and decided to really try to make a difference. Wish me luck! I'm looking forward to learning about the finer points of usability from the SIG.

In my spare time, I enjoy walking in the Swedish countryside, especially in the spectacular Stockholm archipelago, reading criminal thrillers and traveling.

Frank M. Marchak
Veridical Research and Design
Bozeman, MT
fmarchak@veridicalresearch.com

I am a human factors engineering psychologist with a background in cognition and perception, experimental design and analysis, and usability engineering. I've spent fourteen years in the areas of human-computer interaction design, information visualization, and applied research for a variety of government and commercial clients.

My recent efforts have focused on information design, both for electronic documents and in the area of diagrammatic reasoning. Work with interactive electronic technical manuals has involved providing expertise on cognitive issues involved with on-line text comprehension and navigation to help make document interaction more intuitive and effective for the user. I also conduct basic and applied research examining how people interpret and interact with graphs and diagrams, particularly with regard to the effect of the specific interpretation task on the type of graph used. This work is applied toward presenting large diagrams in electronic documentation; since it's much easier to interact with a large, foldout paper diagram then to deal with one on a computer screen. There's little research investigating how best to present such information in a manner that allows users to navigate through it effectively to solve problems.

While I come with a background in usability, I look forward to learning more about the area of technical communication and how to better apply to my work the specialized skills possessed by fellow STC members. I also produce numerous manuals and technical reports, both paper and electronic, which could benefit from the knowledge and expertise of those in this group.

Rob Wolfe
Towers Perrin
Philadelphia, PA
wolfer@towers.com

Like many professionals in our field, it was never my goal to become a technical writer. I graduated from college with a B.S. in Business Administration and a major in Quantitative Business Analysis. Then I worked as a research analyst and an SAS Programmer before becoming a technical writer.

Last year, I moved to Philadelphia and joined a team where I'm helping to show that technical writing in the e-age demands more "technical" than "writing." I have spent most of my time researching and developing new approaches to user assistance, devising workflows, designing HTML-based Help, and conducting training within our department on our new tools and strategies. Earlier this year, our team of technical writers was renamed from "Documentation" to "Visual Design and Communication." While we still focus on providing user documentation and online help for our systems, our new identity reflects our evolving role as both participants and leaders in other areas of system development and delivery, including software interface design, graphic design, and requirements specification, and in the areas of internal marketing and communication on our corporate intranet and within our area of business.

Recently, we ceased distribution of print manuals in favor of PDF distribution of all new user manuals. In conjunction with this move, we've left WinHelp behind in favor of a completely tips-oriented HTML-based Help system. Our new highly customized Help interface uses javascript and CSS to enhance navigation and usability for multiple levels of users. We have committed ourselves to redefining the traditional "user manual" and providing truly useful user support tools.

More than ever, our team is evaluating and demonstrating the need to more systematically address usability in both our online help and support systems and our department's software applications as we transition away from the mainframe interface to a new generation of browser-based systems . While we were known as "documentors" not long ago, our team is becoming recognized and called upon as authorities on user interface design and usability, thanks to the interests, initiatives, and expertise of the-group-formerly-known-as-Documentation. I joined the Usability SIG to broaden my awareness and knowledge of usability issues and my exposure to usability experts.