STC Usability SIG Newsletter
Usability Interface

Letter to the Editor

I think that the Usability SIG offers its members outstanding ways to share their knowledge, ideas, research, and experience. The Usability Interface newsletter provides members and non-members carefully prepared, thoughtful articles. The Usability SIG Web site gives members and non-members access to current and back issues of the newsletter; it also serves as a repository for valuable professional information and links to additional information. The Usability discussion group offers members who choose to belong to it an opportunity to discuss a wide range of quickly changing topics.

Proposal

Each of our communication vehicles is incredibly valuable in its own right. However, for the past year or so1 I've been wondering if we could foster more synergy among our communication vehicles so that members enjoy an even more exciting and engaging USIG experience. Specifically, I would like to suggest three things:

1. We make our newsletter more interactive by designating some articles in each issue of Usability Interface as discussion articles and that we encourage SIG members to comment on those articles.
2. We provide online methods for members to contribute their comments and read other members' comments. The opportunities to contribute and read the discussion comments might be benefits of SIG membership, and the discussions might promote participation and interaction among our USIG community.
3. We provide an archive and / or summary of the comments to document the response of our members.

Implementation Approaches

How to designate discussion articles and encourage comments would be up to the newsletter Editor. We might, perhaps, start by designating this article as one of the discussion pieces in this issue of Usability Interface.

How to collect and disseminate comments could be done in a number of ways. The method selected would probably depend on the effort required and the staffing available to get the work done. (I would be happy to help.) Of the many approaches possible, two are:

We could either provide a link at the end of the online version of the discussion articles to the current USIG discussion group or we could provide a link to a separate USIG discussion group dedicated to discussing newsletter articles.

• We could provide a link at the end of the online version of each discussion article to a separate discussion group for only that article. (For example, we could establish something like a Yahoo! community listserv for each article, and authorize participation in that community for the addresses on the USIG email list.)
• If we need to make provisions to include comments from members who do not use the internet, we could do that too.

How to provide an archive or summary of the comments submitted during the discussion of the article would depend on how the discussion comments were collected.

• If the comments were collected in a separate discussion Blog for that article, then the comments might be archived online with the original online version of the article.
• If the comments were collected in a shared discussion group, then the original author might prepare a summary of the comments. (This collection approach would follow the very effective technical communication FORUM conferences, especially their Idea Markets and their PreSeedings and PostHarvest publications, which influenced my thinking about this part of this proposal.) If the original author is unavailable to prepare the summary, then a discussion summarizer might be assigned.
• In either case, a summary of the comments could then appear in a follow-on article in the newsletter.

Benefits

If we start by designating some of our newsletter articles as discussion articles, we may be able to shift the "newsletter" paradigm to more of a "news discussion" paradigm. As I see it, the newsletter paradigm is one in which an author writes a letter or article that is sent to others who then sit and read it. Perhaps a better paradigm for our fast-moving, highly interactive society is that of an "idea network" or "news discussion" in which a person presents a carefully prepared, thoughtful idea statement (which is like an article) that is sent to others who then respond by entering into a discussion of that idea; the discussion might include the statement's author and any other respondents who care to participate.

By using our newsletter to increase interaction among SIG members, we may increase the vitality of our newsletter and provide an additional way to promote a sense of community among the Usability SIG participants. And by using the Web as our primary medium for interactivity, we would have more reasons for disseminating our newsletter online, and we would retain the ability to archive and retrieve past articles and discussion comments online.

A few journals have adopted this approach (such as e-Volunteerism: The Electronic Journal of the Volunteer Community, at www.e-volunteerism.com), but we may be the first professional society to create an interactive online newsletter.

I think we have much to gain by designating some of our newsletter articles as discussion articles and providing an interactive method to discuss those articles. I think we should try it and see how it goes. Perhaps we could start the news discussion with this proposal. I'd like to know what you think.

Thank you for considering these ideas.

Naomi Kleid

Dear Naomi

Thank you for writing. I have submitted your suggestion to Whitney Quesenbery our Web Master and Karen Bachmann our Usability SIG Manager to review the feasibility and benefits of your suggestion. Their response will be published in the next issue.

David Dick, Editor