Technical Communication最新文献

{"title":"Understanding Agency Through Testimonios: An Indigenous Approach to UX Research","authors":"Nora K. Rivera","doi":"10.55177/tc986798","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.55177/tc986798","url":null,"abstract":"Purpose: This article presents a UX study conducted during a roundtable collaborative event with Indigenous interpreters and translators. The work highlights the value of Indigenous testimonios as a UX method for gathering narratives that trace a user's experience through a collective\u0000 voice. Testimonios also trace users' social and cultural contexts while prompting participants to exercise their agency and promote social change. Method: This UX study engages Indigenous testimonios as a primary method. Mapping testimonios allows researchers to explore a\u0000 participant's narrative arc that begins with a personal experience that links a collective struggle resulting from a system of oppression and ends with a call for social change. Results: Using testimonios as a UX method yielded data that traced individual and collective pain\u0000 points that defined the critical issues with which Indigenous interpreters and translators grapple and emphasized their civic engagement, amplifying their agency through a method situated in their contexts. This work also highlights dialogue and desahogo, or emotional relief,\u0000 as key elements of testimonios shared in a collective setting. This study shows that Indigenous interpreters and translators, as technical communicators, are foremost community activists. Conclusion: A testimonio method prompts participants to reflect on issues at a deeper\u0000 level through narratives and dialogue. It also engages the unique differences of participants while revealing general similarities. Testimonios can ultimately help design content, products, and processes that better align with the unique contexts of Indigenous individuals and other underrepresented\u0000 groups who express their needs in a collective manner.","PeriodicalId":46338,"journal":{"name":"Technical Communication","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45818170","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Gamifying Good Deeds: User Experience, Agency, and Values in Play During a Descriptathon","authors":"Brett Oppegaard, Michael Rabby","doi":"10.55177/tc124312","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.55177/tc124312","url":null,"abstract":"Purpose: This study compares value expressions of intervention designers and participants in a hackathon-like event to research relationships between values and gamification techniques. Our research identifies and analyzes value expressions during a large-scale intervention at\u0000 national parks for social inclusion of people who are blind or have low vision. Researchers and organizations can use our model to create common- ground opportunities within values-sensitive gamified designs. Method: We collected qualitative and quantitative data via multiple\u0000 methods and from different perspectives to strengthen validity and better determine what stakeholders wanted from the gamified experience. For methods—a pre-survey, a list of intervention activities, and a post-survey—we analyzed discourse and coded for values; then we compared\u0000 data across sets to evaluate values and their alignment/misalignment among intervention designers and participants. Results: Without clear and focused attention to values, designers and participants can experience underlying, unintended, and unnecessary friction.\u0000 Conclusion: Of the many ways to conceptualize and perform a socially just intervention, this research illustrates the worth of explicitly identifying values on the front end of the design intervention process and actively designing those values into the organizational aspects of the intervention.\u0000 A design model like ours serves as a subtextual glue to keep people working together. The model also undergirds these complementary value systems, as they interact and combine to contribute to a cause.","PeriodicalId":46338,"journal":{"name":"Technical Communication","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45537436","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Localizing Content: The Roles of Technical & Professional Communicators and Machine Learning in Personalized Chatbot Responses","authors":"Daniel L. Hocutt, N. Ranade, Gustav Verhulsdonck","doi":"10.55177/tc148396","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.55177/tc148396","url":null,"abstract":"Purpose: This study demonstrates that microcontent, a snippet of personalized content that responds to users' needs, is a form of localization reliant on a content ecology. In contributing to users' localized experiences, technical communicators should recognize their work as\u0000 part of an assemblage in which users, content, and metrics augment each other to produce personalized content that can be consumed by and delivered through artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted technology. Method: We use an exploratory case study on an AI-driven chatbot to\u0000 demonstrate the assemblage of user, content, metrics, and AI. By understanding assemblage roles and function of different units used to build AI systems, technical and professional communicators can contribute to microcontent development. We define microcontent as a localized form of content\u0000 deployed by AI and quickly consumed by a human user through online interfaces. Results: We identify five insertion points where technical communicators can participate in localizing content: • Creating structured content for bots to better meet user needs\u0000 • Training corpora for bots with data-informed user personas that can better address specific needs of user groups • Developing chatbot user interfaces that are more responsive to user needs • Developing effective human-in-the-loop approaches by moderating\u0000 content for refining future human-chatbot interactions • Creating more ethically and user-centered data practices with different stakeholders. Conclusion: Technical communicators should teach, research, and practice competencies and skills to advocate for\u0000 localized users in assemblages of user, content, metrics, and AI.","PeriodicalId":46338,"journal":{"name":"Technical Communication","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46602181","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Localizing UX Advocacy and Accountability: Using Personas to Amplify User Agency","authors":"Guiseppe Getto, Suzan Flanagan","doi":"10.55177/tc914783","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.55177/tc914783","url":null,"abstract":"Purpose: This article documents ongoing UX research to develop a grant-funded mobile safety app for recreational boaters. The article presents a workflow for designers to align user advocacy with organizational accountability through the use of personas. Each year, numerous boating\u0000 safety concerns and incidents go unreported. User research into this context shows that recreational boaters want a mobile app that helps them enjoy boating trips while remaining safe. Method: We reviewed best practices from literature, analyzed interviews with 141 stakeholders,\u0000 and then discussed findings using personas to amplify user agency as part of a Lean UX workflow for the development of a mobile app that balances users' goals with organizational accountability. Results: Representative groups of boaters want features that help them with\u0000 navigation, charting, and communication. These features would help alleviate pain points and enable goals having to do with not getting lost, avoiding hazards, and communicating trip progress to audiences onshore. In addition, the personas we have developed will help us communicate to the\u0000 development team behind the app to explain how they can develop features that accommodate users' needs. Conclusion: Though personas are limited as to how well they represent actual users, if used properly within a design process they are a powerful tool for amplifying user\u0000 agency so that resulting apps achieve user adoption. As part of a Lean UX workflow, personas are a useful tool in tailoring products and services to user needs while ensuring organizational accountability to those needs.","PeriodicalId":46338,"journal":{"name":"Technical Communication","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45103280","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Everyone Is Always Aging: Glocalizing Digital Experiences by Considering the Oldest Cohort of Users","authors":"Allegra W. Smith","doi":"10.55177/tc674376","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.55177/tc674376","url":null,"abstract":"Purpose: Older adults (aged 65+) represent an under-explored group in technical communication, despite rapid population aging. Designing for older age cohorts holds potential for \"glocalization\"—integrating the local and the global—through attending to the needs of\u0000 a specific user community while benefiting all users through interventions that prioritize usability, accessibility, and generational cultures. Method: Using structured task analysis methods, I investigated the steps and decisions that six adults aged 75+ took to accomplish\u0000 five increasingly difficult tasks. Results: Though participants were easily able to access the Internet and find a news story online, they faced difficulties when attempting to modify the homepage on their browser, use mapping tools to determine the distance between two locations,\u0000 and identify a government document answering a question about income taxes. These findings point to four key considerations when designing for older age cohorts: user customization and personalization, information literacy, deceptive patterns, and mismatched mental models stemming from gaps\u0000 between declarative and procedural knowledge. Addressing these needs through targeted design, documentation, and education can help the oldest user group to realize their technological goals. Conclusion: This very localized study of a specific group of users has\u0000 global implications for research and practice. Designing experiences for the oldest adults provides critical opportunities for usability, because though they represent a specific user community, designing for them and alongside them actually benefits all users, because everyone is always\u0000 aging. Thus, accounting for aging bodies and minds serves as an important form of glocalization for designers of communication.","PeriodicalId":46338,"journal":{"name":"Technical Communication","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49517120","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Do Voices Really Make a Difference? Investigating the Value of Local Video Narratives in Risk Perceptions and Attitudes Towards Sea-Level Rise","authors":"Daniel P. Richards, S. Stephens","doi":"10.55177/tc105639","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.55177/tc105639","url":null,"abstract":"Purpose: The authors present the results of an empirical study investigating strategies for localizing risk messaging pertaining to sea-level rise (SLR) and flooding. We argue that continued testing is necessary to help bolster arguments about the value of localization design\u0000 practices and that technical communication as a field is positioned well to lead the charge in such testing. Method: The authors conducted a mixed methods research study to discover whether video stories from local residents change user perceptions or concern about SLR as\u0000 a risk. More than 100 survey responses were collected to track any relation between concern and understanding and modality of storytelling, and focus groups were led with 13 survey respondents to add a deeper understanding of effective strategies for localization. Results:\u0000 The data show that video and textual storytelling do not differ as much as expected in the context of decision-support tools for SLR. Conclusion: Although video narratives for localization did not affect user perception or concern about SLR more strongly than text quotes\u0000 did, participants felt that the localization efforts were compelling. Participants suggested ways in which both video and textual narratives might be more effectively used to support audiences' understanding of SLR. As a result of their suggestions, we note future research topics and testing\u0000 methods to explore risk localization best practices.","PeriodicalId":46338,"journal":{"name":"Technical Communication","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42783039","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Exploring Localized Usability Implementation in mHealth App Design for Healthcare Practitioners in the Global South Context: A Case Study","authors":"Keshab R. Acharya","doi":"10.55177/tc885177","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.55177/tc885177","url":null,"abstract":"Purpose: This study was designed to better understand how mobile health applications (mHealth apps) designed in the Global North (GN) are perceived as usable, empowering, and persuasive by users, particularly healthcare practitioners, in the context of a Global South (GS) country.\u0000 Method: This article employed an online survey of users of a mHealth app that was designed and developed in the GN for global use. Survey participants included healthcare practitioners from a GS country and the survey was administered by snowball sampling method. Results:\u0000 Eighty-three survey responses from healthcare practitioners in Nepal were coded into three broad categories: user experience and mHealth apps, localized usability and mHealth apps, and persuasive design and mHealth apps. Their relationships and connections are examined within these categories.\u0000 Conclusion: From a user empowerment perspective, understanding the interest, motivation, and concerns of end-users is vital to the development and implementation of mHealth apps, especially in the low- and middle-income healthcare contexts in which healthcare practitioners have limited\u0000 resources. Culturally sustaining localized UX approaches should be adopted to create usable, empowering, and persuasive mHealth apps for use in resource-constrained cultural settings in the GS.","PeriodicalId":46338,"journal":{"name":"Technical Communication","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49145089","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Mapping the Evolutionary Characteristics of Global Research Related to Technical Communication: A Scientometric Review","authors":"Mingdan Luo, D. DeWitt, Norlidah Alias","doi":"10.55177/tc995833","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.55177/tc995833","url":null,"abstract":"Purpose: Technical communication (TC) is an emerging topic which has received attention in both the field of language studies and among the technical profession in the last few decades. In this article, a scientometric review of academic publications to explore the intellectual\u0000 landscape and evolutionary characteristics of TC research worldwide between 2001 and 2020 is conducted. Methods: Visualization software was employed to analyze co-citation and co-word networks from 2,183 articles published in Web of Science and Scopus databases from 2001 to 2020.\u0000 Results: The findings indicate that TC research has increased in recent years and has been done in the English language departments and technology departments in recent years. Then, five clusters form the intellectual structure of TC research: translation training, methodologies in\u0000 TC, composition studies, rhetorical action, and the industry's needs. Finally, the findings indicated there were paradigm shifts in the field of TC. Further, the evolution analysis has shown that the current trends of TC research is now focused on TC pedagogy, a global TC, human-computer\u0000 interaction, and language learning and training. Conclusion: This review provides reliable information for academics and practitioners to identify the knowledge base, the evolutionary process, and the emerging trends in the TC field from visualized maps. This review can serve as\u0000 a prelude for future TC research and can provide a guide for the TC skills required among professionals in the future.","PeriodicalId":46338,"journal":{"name":"Technical Communication","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-08-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43456394","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Eleven Guidelines for the Design of Instructional Videos for Software Training","authors":"H. van der Meij, Constanze Hopfner","doi":"10.55177/tc786532","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.55177/tc786532","url":null,"abstract":"Purpose: Video is a popular medium for instructing people how to use software. In 2013, van der Meij and van der Meij proposed eight guidelines for the design of instructional videos for software training. Since then, production techniques and video features evolved, and new\u0000 insights about characteristics of effective video instructions emerged. Methods: Based on recent study outcomes and our reflections on instructional video designs, the original set of eight guidelines was restructured, updated, and extended. Results:A new framework with\u0000 11 guidelines was constructed. For these guidelines the article provides scientifically-based advice for the design of instructional videos for software training. Conclusion: The new framework and the illustrations of how the guidelines were applied in videos should provide useful\u0000 insights for further practice and research on instructional video design.","PeriodicalId":46338,"journal":{"name":"Technical Communication","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-08-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46288723","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Creating a Model for Developing and Evaluating Technical Instructions that use Extended Reality","authors":"Satu Rantakokko","doi":"10.55177/tc001245","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.55177/tc001245","url":null,"abstract":"Purpose: Extended reality (XR) is an umbrella term for the many ways that we can now design 3D, interactive, and real-time environments as in combining virtual and real elements, and experience immersion in a completely virtual reality (VR). The use of XR is increasing in popularity\u0000 across a range of industries. Although researchers are becoming increasingly interested in the benefits and challenges of using XR to convey technical instructions, more comprehensive research is required. I aim to address this need in the present article by introducing an affordance model\u0000 of Technical Instructions in Extended Reality, the TIER model. Two earlier categorizations, the affordances of technical instructions, and the phases of data handling in XR, formed the point of departure for this article. The analysis utilized a four-category model of affordances by Rantakokko\u0000 and Nuopponen (2019) that comprised: accessing, finding, understanding, and relying on. Data handling in XR drew on a phase-based model by Rantakokko (2022) featuring: collection, processing, storage, transfer, combining, and presentation. Methods:The two sets of categorizations\u0000 were combined into a holistic model with an iterative process in order to offer a tool for analyzing and describing the possibilities and challenges that XR brings to designing technical instructions. The iterative process was conducted by adding examples from existing research into matrix\u0000 tables to understand how the affordances of technical instructions and the phases of data handling in XR are connected. Results: The TIER model is introduced with examples to illustrate how it can be used to view every phase of XR data handling in terms of the affordances of technical\u0000 instructions based on the laws, regulations, principles of good guidance, and the design process. Conclusion: The TIER model can be used as a tool for an organized, step-by-step design process as well as testing XR-based technical instructions to ensure that the features of XR support\u0000 the intended affordances of technical instructions. technical instructions, affordances, extended reality, mixed reality,","PeriodicalId":46338,"journal":{"name":"Technical Communication","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-08-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43852747","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}