Usability in Technical Writing
"Well-written" manuals are not good enough.
To most technical writers, "well-written" has traditionally been their quality goal for the User's Guide, online Help, and other information elements they developed. "Well-written" meant things like clarity of text and accuracy of grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
These are important characteristics to achieve. But, what should be our ultimate goal when we design information for people who want to quickly and easily do things with our software?
The answer is in the question. People want to quickly and easily perform tasks with our software. Therefore, the quality goal for information should rather be to help improve the ease-of-use of software. This means all our efforts and deliverables should be focused on making that
possible.
Enter UCID
User-Centered Information Design (UCID) is an integrated approach to designing various information elements such that they together improve software usability.
In UCID, the design stage is iterative and evaluation is a two-level activity. Technical writers, in collaboration with usability engineers and software engineers, primarily design and write all the four information components that impact software usability:
- User interface labels: names of all those things on the user's screens (for example, names of menu options)
- Application messages: error messages, warning messages, etc
- Online documentation: all the information elements that appear on the screen (for example, Help and tutorial)
- Printed documentation: all the paper-based manuals such as User's Guide and Reference Manual
Benefits of UCID
By giving a software usability driven approach, UCID puts you on the right track toward designing information. The UCID approach covers new strategies for the design and evaluation of information. The critical design goals you set and the two-level evaluation approach keep your information development efforts focused on improving software usability.
A UCID project makes full use of the technical writer's skills. Writers now have an expanded and challenging role that includes the design of labels and messages.
UCID brings you the advantages of integration. The UCID process ensures that individual information elements (error messages, screen-level Help, User's Guide, etc) are identified and designed together as one piece — with improved software usability as the goal. This means you make better decisions on what types of information to provide in which media and in what form -- based on users' needs and your project-specific requirements. Through integration, you will avoid four undesirable things: exclusion of critical information, inclusion of unnecessary information, unnecessary repetition, and information inconsistencies across the software system.
By helping you meet users' information requirements, UCID achieves improved software usability, which ultimately impacts the software organization's image and bottom-line.
http://www.tech-bridge.com/ucid.html
To most technical writers, "well-written" has traditionally been their quality goal for the User's Guide, online Help, and other information elements they developed. "Well-written" meant things like clarity of text and accuracy of grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
These are important characteristics to achieve. But, what should be our ultimate goal when we design information for people who want to quickly and easily do things with our software?
The answer is in the question. People want to quickly and easily perform tasks with our software. Therefore, the quality goal for information should rather be to help improve the ease-of-use of software. This means all our efforts and deliverables should be focused on making that
possible.
Enter UCID
User-Centered Information Design (UCID) is an integrated approach to designing various information elements such that they together improve software usability.
In UCID, the design stage is iterative and evaluation is a two-level activity. Technical writers, in collaboration with usability engineers and software engineers, primarily design and write all the four information components that impact software usability:
- User interface labels: names of all those things on the user's screens (for example, names of menu options)
- Application messages: error messages, warning messages, etc
- Online documentation: all the information elements that appear on the screen (for example, Help and tutorial)
- Printed documentation: all the paper-based manuals such as User's Guide and Reference Manual
Benefits of UCID
By giving a software usability driven approach, UCID puts you on the right track toward designing information. The UCID approach covers new strategies for the design and evaluation of information. The critical design goals you set and the two-level evaluation approach keep your information development efforts focused on improving software usability.
A UCID project makes full use of the technical writer's skills. Writers now have an expanded and challenging role that includes the design of labels and messages.
UCID brings you the advantages of integration. The UCID process ensures that individual information elements (error messages, screen-level Help, User's Guide, etc) are identified and designed together as one piece — with improved software usability as the goal. This means you make better decisions on what types of information to provide in which media and in what form -- based on users' needs and your project-specific requirements. Through integration, you will avoid four undesirable things: exclusion of critical information, inclusion of unnecessary information, unnecessary repetition, and information inconsistencies across the software system.
By helping you meet users' information requirements, UCID achieves improved software usability, which ultimately impacts the software organization's image and bottom-line.
http://www.tech-bridge.com/ucid.html
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