The UUX Community Newsletter
Usability Interface

Usability Interface is the quarterly publication of the Usability and User Experience Community. The purpose of the newsletter is to provide technical communicators with up-to-date and in-depth information on how they can apply usability design and testing techniques to their products. A short version containing the lead articles and community news is mailed to all members.

May 2005

Print the complete issue 
(25 pages)

That's a Good Question
By Elizabeth Frick
All of us have suffered the consequences of expensive, unasked questions both in our professional lives and our personal lives. As technical communicators, we need to ask good questions to elicit information

The Key for Effective Documentation: Answer the User’s Real Question
By Michael J. Albers
Documentation must do more than meet the user’s information needs, it must present the information in the same way the user processes the information. Effectively designing documentation requires the writer to: start with the user, answer the user’s rest questions, optimize all documentation as a single unit, allow for user mistakes, and consider how you present the information.

Conducting Successful SME Interviews
By Jennifer Lambe
Successful SME interviews require careful research and preparation in advance. During the interview, good listening skills, critical analysis, and the ability to maintain control of the range and depth of the interview with appropriate tact are crucial to successful outcomes.

Managing Customer Feedback on User Documentation
By Jaya Parameswaran
Lessons from a writers’ task force that plans to solicit, compile and act upon customer feedback. Because the lines between the customer and a PMO are so open for communication, we have learnt not to avoid feedback but to use it as a mechanism for continuous improvement.

Just Kick It: Six Things You Can Do to Make Your Computer Run Faster
By Renee Schurtz
Instructions for a few simple things you can try to tune-up your computer and make it run faster.

The World is Ready for Usability. Is Usability Ready for the World?
By Kathy Straub
User-centered design is being systematically integrated into the Web, application and product development process. It's the tipping point usability specialists have been waiting for. But are we ready? Does the field have the tools, and resources -- or for that matter the people -- to keep up with the need?

The Book Shelf: Institutionalization of Usability: A Step-by-Step Guide
Reviewed by Ruth Haworth

Columns and SIG News

Usabilty in Belgium?
David Dick, Editor
Belgium is renowned for scrumptious chocolates, Trappist beers, canals of Bruges, Flemish painters, cathedrals...and usability.

A Question of Process
Karen Bachmann, UUX Community Manager
What questions do we need to ask of ourselves and our clients to understand what their needs are? How do they define satisfaction with the usability process? What other questions are we not asking or are we asking wrong?

Community News and Conference Announcements

• Usability Interface Earns Excellence Award
• 5th International Conference on Plain Language
• News from Usability NJ: ‘Agile Development and the Role of Usability’