30335164
User-centeredness, situatedness, and designing the media of computer documentation
User-centeredness has become a concept of much interest in a number of fields. Systems engineering, architecture, usability research and computer documentation, to name a few, are all areas of study which have, to one degree or another, adopted the terminology of user-centered philosophy in order to come to grips with the problem of how to design for users' needs.
While there is much positive to be said about applying user-centered concepts to any discipline that wishes to pursue it, there is also a danger that the concept and philosophy of user-centered design could become, at best, empty rhetoric, and, at worst, fuel for lip service that could serve to undermine the humanitarian goals of a user-centered ethic.
One concept which has already suffered a similar fate is that of “problem-solving.” Problem-solving has become, essentially, a hollow term when used by certain disciplines or institutions. For example, it is commonplace to hear representatives of business and industry refer to the need for 'good problem-solvers' in the world of business.
One answer to this call has been the adoption of the terminology of problem-solving by the business curricula of many college and university business schools. At least one critic of current business school curricula has mentioned that theories of problem-solving have been diluted by the time they reach students (1). My own experience in teaching business writing at two universities has shown similar characteristics. Many of the business majors want to refer to themselves as “good problem-solvers” in their job application letters, but when asked to elaborate on or give an example of this, they often have simplified or inaccurate ideas of what should constitute an understanding of rich and powerful strategies.
Certainly, the research and theory-building of Simon and Newell (2), or G. Polya (3) is applicable to the academic and workplace settings of business, but somehow the terminology of the theory lost its relevance during the translation.
My purpose in this article is to discuss how user-centered computer documentation can avoid a similar fate. At present I fear our direction is veering in the direction of such a fate, and that one step toward correcting our course is to develop a clear theoretical understanding of what user-centeredness means to documentation. This means that although there may be a tacit theory which underlies current applications, it is important to make the theory visible, and thereby illuminate the gaps that may exist.
In addition, my focus will also be upon the contribution that user-centered theory can bring to our understanding of how to design for the different media of computer documentation. As we all know, online and hypermedia documentation is becoming a central charge of our profession, and user-centered theory can go a long way in helping us understand the similarities and differences among the different media.
45429766
The Wired Neighborhood: An Extended Multimedia Conversation
The Institute was preceded by a three-week graduate seminar which I cotaught with a colleague of mine at Miami, Mice Adams. As you might have already guessed, one of the texts for the seminar was The Wired Neighbor. hood. The book raised a number of interesting issues, so interesting that several of the students wished to take the classroom discussions a step further and actually engage Steve in an extended dialogue about his book. Thus, the following collection of reviews consists of a descriptive summary and two reviews of the book by two Miami graduate students (Becky Graham and Mike Rubingh). Also, an in-depth interview with Steve was conducted by three of the students (Becky, Mike, and Chris Colon). A transcript of that interview is included at the end of the review collection. In addition, two distinguished technical communication colleagues who did not attend the conference, Professors Nancy AUen and Ann Blakeslee of Eastern Michigan University, have provided a review for us that consists of an extended email conversation they had this summer concerning The Wired Neighborhood.
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Testing Applications on the Web: Test Planning for Mobile and Internet-Based Systems
* Includes updates to material on testing Web applications. * Contains new coverage of testing for wireless applications. * From the coauthor of the bestselling testing book of all time. * Each test type is backed up with a testing example and error examples.
196094
Integrating object-oriented programming and protected objects in Ada 95
Integrating concurrent and object-oriented programming has been an active research topic since the late 1980's. There is a now a plethora of methods for achieving this integration. The majority of approaches have taken a sequential object-oriented language and made it concurrent. A few approaches have taken a concurrent language and made it object-oriented. The most important of this latter class is the Ada 95 language, which is an extension to the object-based concurrent programming language Ada 83. Arguably, Ada 95 does not fully integrate its models of concurrency and object-oriented programming. For example, neither tasks nor protected objects are extensible. This article discusses ways in which protected objects can be made more extensible.
2052508
Manager: The Project Scoping Gamble
A discussion is given on how to get people and technology to work together. The authors argue that software project managers can learn important lessons from the gambler. Software development is a gamble. Its a risky game-not unlike high stakes poker. And, like a gambler who must try to figure the best bet, when we're put on the spot trying to "scope" a software project we feel in need of some advice. Judging the timing and resources for a project is difficult when there's not much to go on. And yet, if you fail to estimate correctly, developers, management, and customers will all be unhappy. Defining a proper scope for your project won't guarantee its success, but a poor and especially an overly restricted scope may doom your project to failure. A gambler playing poker uses a variety of strategies to improve the odds of winning.
194485153
The cult of ISDN
9656530
Introduction to commentaries on "Spurious Coin: A History of Science, Management, and Technical Writing" by Bernadette Longo
In past issues of JCD, we have employed graduat e students in rhetoric and technical communication to provide their point of view on new books in the field. In this issue’s book commentary, I have taken this opportunity one more time as students in a graduate seminar at Michigan Tech Histories and Theories of Technical Communication read, discussed, and then responded to Bernadette’s Longo’s Spurious Coin, A History of Science. Management, and Technical Writing (SUNY Press, 2000). At the e nd of the term, I selected two o f the student’s commentaries for publication commentaries that have quite different formats and perspectives on the book. The first commentary is an extended “virtual conversation” of the book fostered by one of the students in the seminar, David Gaskill. In a somewhat different approach to the commentary, Gaskill contact ed three scholars and teachers of technical communication who agreed to take part in the conversation about Spurious Coin, Mary Been, Pete Praetorius, and Margaret Hundleby. The result of the on-line conversation by these three technical communicators is compelli ng in a number of ways. For example, they begin the commentary by enacting a Greek chorus a method that not only is creative, but that sit uates their discussion immediately in one of the same historical contexts that Longo herself investigates in the book. Further, they discuss the text from several vantage points: theoretical, historical, pedagogical, and practical. The result is a thorough analysis of the book, and one that is stimulating reading to boot. The second commentary is a “solo” piece by Michelle Trim, a Ph.D. student in the Michigan Tech Rhetoric and Technical Communication program. Coming at the text as a social critic, Trim considers the gaps that Longo’s text leaves in its wake. That is, she looks at a number of instances in the book where other directions or turns might have been taken. Her approach is not one that is unduly critical, however. Instead, she uses these openings to pose questions for future research that might be spawned from the rich text that Longo has provided. Spurious Coin is a book that contributes much to the field of technical communication. We are certainly lacking in enough history of the profession, and Longo’s book is a welcome addition. I hope that you will enjoy both Longo’s forays into our past, and the conversations that these five writers have had over this important scholarly text.