Usability and User Experience Resources
Idea Market Afterthoughts 2004

Expanding Roles: How Can Technical Communicators Become Usability Specialists?

Activator: Ginny Redish

Question 1: What is a usability specialist?

• A frustrated technical communicator who wants to be proactive

Question 2: What skills do technical communicators have now that make them good candidates to be usability specialists?

• Technical communicators now act as the users' advocate.
• We note the trouble spots in an interface, note problems in terminology, help developers to simplify and to be consistent.
• We help by catching where the product is failing and bringing that to the attention of others on the team.
• Some of us influence the specifications, influence the developers, do more than just write words.
• Some companies have no separate usability specialists; the technical communicators act as the usability specialists.
• Many usability specialists don't know much about documentation; we know about documentation usability.
• Technical communicators know the first questions to ask: Who are the users? What are their tasks?

Question 3: What routes have technical communicators taken or could they take to become usability specialists?

• Bring in someone with credentials.
• Use resources such as

• www.usability.gov
• the STC Usability SIG web site at http://www.stcsig.org/usability/resources/index.html
• the Usability Professionals' Association's web site at http://www.usabilityprofessionals.org/usability_resources/
  

• Join the listservs; for example, the STC Usability SIG has a listserv.
• Read books on usability.
• Go to the sessions at the conference on usability.
• Just start doing it!
• Get involved early; in one company writers and usability specialists review the design documents before the developers start to code.
• Sell yourselves to managers and others on the team as the bridge between users and developers.
• Put the documentation into the GUI; that forces you to learn more about the users and brings you together with the designers and developers.
• Show the value of having technical communicators as usability specialists.

Question 4: What cautions or concerns would you have for technical communicators who want to become usability specialists?

• Be conscious of the culture in your corporation.
• We need to get people to realize the usability skills that technical communicators have.
• Some people said, "I don't know enough." Others pointed back to the resources to learn more.