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>I am a tech. writer for a company that develops virtual prototyping
>software for the automotive industry. Tomorrow morning our writing
>staff of three is going make customer site visits
I suppose this comes too late to do any good, but between now and the next such
opportunity, why don't you read
User and Task Analysis for Interface Design by JoAnn T. Hackos and Janice C.
Redish (Wiley, NY, 1998, 508pp, ISBN 0-471-17831-4)
Here's an excerpt from my review of it in the Mar/Apr IEEE Micro:
***********************************
Hackos and Redish have written a practical book. They start from a piece of
advice that every designer has heard and most designers try to follow:
understand your users and the tasks in which they use your product. This is
easy to say but hard to do. Hackos and Redish tell you how to do it. They
explain how to observe and interview users at their workplaces and how to
record and interpret the data you gather.
While the book is about how to conduct site visits, the visits themselves
occupy only two chapters. The bulk of the book deals with advance preparations
and post-visit analysis.
***********************************
I hope that helps. ...RM
Richard Mateosian <srm -at- cyberpass -dot- net>
Review Editor, IEEE Micro Berkeley, CA
