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Re: Testing doc usability within a company (was Doc Manager and Dev Manager debate)
Subject:Re: Testing doc usability within a company (was Doc Manager and Dev Manager debate) From:"Laura A Mac Lemale" <lmaclemale -at- paychex -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Thu, 09 Aug 2001 10:26:27 -0400
Hello all,
In a thread that evolved from the Doc Manager and Dev Manager equality debate, Robert, Kent, Connie, Jim, and others began discussing the concept of the TW's role in usability assessment.
Are there any TWs out there documenting systems, software, and/or procedures for internal users? If so, do you have any sort of usability testing in place? Also, have you had any input from tech support on issues that could save phone calls if addressed in the documentation?
The reason I'm asking is because my team documents systems, software, and procedures for internal company users. Usability is such a hot topic these days, and I think that we could benefit from an internal usability study of documentation and training materials. The assumption is that internal usability testing may be more easily accomplished than external, but is that necessarily
true?
If any of you have tried this at your company, either successfully or unsuccessfully, I'd like to know about your experiences. All opinions and ideas welcome. Please respond directly or cc me as I'm on digest. I'd be happy to post a summary for anyone else interested. Looking forward to your comments!
Thanks, and have a great day,
Laura
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Laura MacLemale
Technical Writer, EDV
Paychex HRS Operations
(716) 336-6515
lmaclemale -at- paychex -dot- com
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this message represent those of the sender and not of Paychex, Inc.
A bit-'o-discussion snipped for background:
"<snip>...The head engineers on my product
are always flying out to meet with customers, give presentations, and so
on. Our Human Factors team does customer visits. The support people talk to
customers and log calls all day every day. We tech writers are mostly
sitting at our desks and writing or taking notes in meetings with
developers, hearing about customer contact second-hand. We almost always
defer to the judgement of those people when it comes to the content and
usability of our documentation because they deal with the people who use
it. We rarely do.<rest snipped>" (Robert)
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IPCC 01, Oct. 24-27 in Santa Fe. http://ieeepcs.org/2001/
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