Tec-Ed, Inc.

Tec-Ed

    Insights            

                                                     Improving customer satisfaction through
                                                     user research and information design

Winter is finally behind us, spring upon us—and we’re eager to get out! We’ve been enhancing our services and preparing for conferences. This issue of Tec-Ed Insights previews what’s ahead.

In this issue:

• New to usability? Come up to speed fast with Tec-Ed’s three–day workshop.

• The conference season is here. Learn about Tec-Ed’s activities at CHI, STC, UPA, and more.

• Inside Tec-Ed: We welcome back Larry Rusinsky; a book with our chapter wins an NCTE award.

• Upcoming events: UPA and IPCC conferences.

Usability training: Tec-Ed’s new usability training course will debut in September at our Ann Arbor headquarters. The in–depth course covers user-centered design, usability testing, and other usability evaluation and user research methods. Half of the course time is devoted to hands–on workshops to give practice in requirements gathering, scenario building, and storyboarding, as well as usability test design, administration, observation, and reporting.

Tec-Ed has developed the course with Chauncey Wilson, an HCI architect and consultant who is also one of our long–time professional associates. Together we have hundreds of design projects and usability studies from which to draw examples. For more information, see the course description of Fundamentals of user-Centered Design and Research.

This conference season: Tec-Ed has always been active in professional organizations at the local and national level. It’s a good way to share what we’ve learned, compare notes with others, meet fascinating and brilliant people, and have fun.

We’re particularly busy this year. After warming up in April with presentations to local groups in Detroit and Milwaukee, we headed for CHI where we led a workshop and convened a SIG. Plus, Garett Dworman served on the conference committee as a logistics liaison. We then presented at the STC Conference in May, and next are on the programs of the UPA Conference in June and the IEEE’s International Professional Communication Conference (IPCC) in September.

Check out the details of what we’re doing in 2004. We look forward to seeing many of you again, whether it’s to talk shop or just say hello.

Inside Tec-Ed:

• Larry Rusinsky rejoined Tec-Ed in February as senior information architect and usability specialist. Larry has over 20 years of experience in technical communication, usability, and information organization and retrieval, most recently with Argus Associates, where he designed web-based information architectures.

• Reshaping Technical Communication: New Directions and Challenges for the 21st Century received a 2003 Award for Excellence in Technical and Scientific Writing for the Best Collection of Essays from the National Council of Teachers of English. Among the book’s essays is Expanding Roles for Technical Communicators, written by Lori Anschuetz and Stephanie Rosenbaum.

Upcoming events:

• UPA’s 13th Annual Conference, June 7 to 11 in Minneapolis.

• IPCC Conference, September 29 to October 2, also in Minneapolis.

As always, papers will be posted to www.teced.com after the conference.

To comment or for more information on Tec-Ed, please feel free to contact Stephanie Rosenbaum (just reply to this e–mail).

Note: To be added to the newsletter mailing list,
click SUBSCRIBE and put “subscribe” in the subject line of the e–mail.

To be removed from the newsletter mailing list,
click UNSUBSCRIBE and put “unsubscribe” in the subject line of the e–mail.
Tec-Ed will not share your e–mail address with anyone else, whether you stay on the list or unsubscribe.