Technical communication on life support: Content strategy and UX are the reclamation

LaRoche, Chris; Traynor, Brian

doi:10.1109/ipcc.2013.6623941

Cited by 13 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…As UX is an ever growing and changing field, Getto, et al argue that learning how to adapt and learn is more important for teachers and programs of UX rather than solely focusing on teaching tools or products and that UX programs should balance theory and practice [9]. Several scholars have argued for the importance of students working on client-based or service-learning projects and developing robust partnerships with industry to help students gain a more situated understanding of working in UX [9,10,[17][18][19]. In the field of HCI, there has also been a small but persistent effort to study industry practices to inform pedagogy.…”

Section: Understanding Existing Industry Practices To Inform Pedagogymentioning

confidence: 99%

Preparing Future UX Professionals

Rose

Putnam

McDonald

2020

Proceedings of the 38th ACM International Conference on Design of Communication

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The field of user experience (UX) is growing and rapidly evolving. As instructors who teach in and help design UX programs for students in higher education, we are interested in developing compelling and relevant educational experiences for our students who aim to work as UX professionals. To gain a better understanding of the current expectations for working in the UX industry, we conducted 64 interviews with 71 senior UX industry professionals to learn about their current practices and their expectations of what skills new employees need to be successful working in UX. In this paper, we present a subset of findings from the study that focus on desired skills (both human and technical) and dispositions of UX employees. We discuss the implications of this research for teachers and students and a call for future work. CCS CONCEPTS • Applied computing → Education; • Human-centered computing → Human computer interaction (HCI); Empirical studies in HCI.

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Section: Understanding Existing Industry Practices To Inform Pedagogymentioning

confidence: 99%

Preparing Future UX Professionals

Rose

Putnam

McDonald

2020

Proceedings of the 38th ACM International Conference on Design of Communication

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“…The skills learned from these exercises are also useful for future technical communicators in a wide variety of online or otherwise digitally-mediated situations outside of games and game design. We know from the literature that iteration and prototyping are being used in emerging domains such as user experience design (Laroche & Traynor, 2013; Redish & Barnum, 2011) and have long been a part of writing for software engineers (Levine et al., 1991). However, even more globally, current trends in education, business, and leisure suggest that media at large will continue to become more interactive and gamified.…”

Section: Three Game-based Tactics For Teaching Technical Communicationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Game Design Tactics for Teaching Technical Communication in Online Courses

McDaniel

Telep

2020

Journal of Technical Writing and Communication

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This article describes an interdisciplinary, partially online honors course entitled Video Game Theory and Design. The article reviews the literature surrounding video games and technical communication and then outlines the learning objectives for the course. The authors describe individual and team-produced assignments and suggest game design techniques for motivating students. We explain how we assess different projects, including oral game pitches and the complex technical Game Design Documents that are students’ final deliverables. Finally, we discuss how game design techniques provide new perspectives on writing and generate new possibilities for technical communication assignments. We close by proposing three tactics that are useful for teaching technical communication students in hybrid and fully online courses: (a) nonlinear association for creative thinking; (b) team-based assignments for writing and editing using game-based tools; and (c) iterative prototyping and playtesting for multimodal production. Each tactic is contextualized using examples drawn from the field.

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“…Two academic journals-Technical Communication Quarterly (Spinuzzi, 2007b) and Technical Communication (Hayhoe, 2005)-have devoted special issues to discussing the future of the field, and in Reshaping Technical Communication (Mirel & Spilka, 2002), leading technical communication scholars discussed ways for coping with these challenging transformations in the industry. More recent contributions (e.g., Andersen, 2014;LaRoche & Traynor, 2013) indicate that these challenges are far from resolved. Among the most acute signs of such challenges, as LaRoche and Traynor listed, are the lack of resources and the decrease in content that is being produced.…”

Section: Abstract Activity Theory Developmental Work Research Discursive Manifestations Of Contradictions Technical Communicationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Other scholars suggest becoming ''dividuals'' (Spinuzzi, 2007a, p. 273), focusing on customer knowledge (Hackos, 2005), becoming ''boundary spanners'' or ''strategic negotiators'' (Hart & Conklin, 2011, pp. 140-141), focusing on content strategy (Andersen, 2014;LaRoche & Traynor, 2013), or moving toward user experience tasks (LaRoche & Traynor, 2013). While some individual technical communicators have expanded their roles (Anschuetz & Rosenbaum, 2002;Giammona, 2011), there is little evidence of similar developments in the field of technical communication as a whole.…”

Section: Abstract Activity Theory Developmental Work Research Discursive Manifestations Of Contradictions Technical Communicationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Surviving Outsourcing and Offshoring

Virtaluoto

Sannino

Engeström

2016

Journal of Business and Technical Communication

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Major trends, such as outsourcing and offshoring, and field-specific factors, such as the advent of content management systems, have fundamentally changed technical communication in recent years. These changes have been widely discussed in the literature of the field, and this article traces their impact on technical communicators in Finland, a high-cost country where downturns in the export industry and the downsizing of major employers are currently coinciding. Through the framework of activity theory, the article looks at the historical changes in the industry as sources of tension and contradictions that need to be understood in order to support professionals in the industry. With the help of interview data, the authors explore the tensions experienced by technical communication professionals in the face of such changes. This analysis leads to the formulation of a hypothesis of historical contradictions currently at play in the field of technical communication. Developmental potentials stemming from these contradictions are outlined as potential ways forward for technical communicators who notice similar tensions in their own environments.

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Technical communication on life support: Content strategy and UX are the reclamation

Cited by 13 publications

References 3 publications

Preparing Future UX Professionals

Preparing Future UX Professionals

Game Design Tactics for Teaching Technical Communication in Online Courses

Surviving Outsourcing and Offshoring

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