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.

October 2006

The User Edit Method for Evaluating the Usability of Documentation
By Chauncey Wilson, The MathWorks, Inc.
A “user edit” (also known as a “usability edit) is used to evaluate the usability of documentation (Schriver, 1991). Participants in a user edit study think aloud as they use the documentation to complete tasks or they can mark up the pages of the documentation to indicate where they had problems.

Kindred Spirits? Usability Practitioners and Technical Communicators
By Timothy Keirnan
Technical communicators and usability practitioners are not simply kindred spirits—they are the same spirit: the spirit of communication.

The Career Path for Usability Professionals:
A Review of the UPA DC June 7, 2006
By David Dick
Learn about the career path of usability professionals from three speakers who have extensive experience in the usability profession, including managers of usability departments and independent consultants.

Designs We Love To Hate!
By Farilee Mintz
Selections of "least favorite" designs from graduate students of the George Mason University Department of Psychology

Personas and the Technical Communicator
By Geoff Hart
What's the problem with personas? They're a new concept to many communicators, and thus sufficiently unfamiliar to make them difficult to use. To help solve this problem, I developed a couple of personas to show you how it's done, and illustrate their implications for documentation.

Columns and SIG News

Editorial
David Dick, Editor
Welcome to the October issue of Usability Interface.

Let's Get It Started
Karen Bachmann, UUX Manager
STC communities have moved from trying to figure out how they will work in the new model to starting to make the kinds of fundamental changes and undertake initiatives that will build value for members. We are starting to understand how to “play” within and succeed with our new rules. For UUX to undertake new initiatives, we need more members to volunteer.

World Usability Day 2006 – How New Jersey will Celebrate
By Richard D. Herring, Secretary, UsabilityNJ, and Cindy Lu, Chair
New Jersey has provided a steady stream of innovation and research that ranges from physics (Einstein), home products (Edison), Health Sciences (Waksman), to telecommunications (AT&T, Bell Labs and its spinoffs). There seems no better place to celebrate World Usability Day, with an event to be held at the Sarnoff Corporation, site of the landmark RCA Laboratories.

2005-2006 Distinguished SIG Service Award
Susan Duncan, the membership manager, was awarded the 2005-2006 Distinguished SIG Service Award at the 2006 Annual Conference in Las Vegas. Her service and dedication has long benefited the UUX community and its members and made incoming members feel welcome.

The citation on her award reads: For your continuing dedication as membership manager for the Usability and User Experience community. Thank you for making new members feel so welcome and for your cheerful support and leadership.