Tec-Ed, Inc.

Tec-Ed

    Insights            

                                                     Improving customer satisfaction through
                                                     user research and information design

Welcome to the inaugural issue of Tec-Ed Insights. This newsletter will periodically report on what’s happening in user experience research, how Tec-Ed is contributing, and what’s coming up.

In this issue:

• Need in–depth information about your customers? Try field studies.
• Review these tried–and–true methods for assessing the usability of your website.
• More customers are online, and so is more documentation. Here are some ways to make sure it’s usable.
• Growing to serve you better: Tec-Ed adds four new staff members.
• Upcoming events: IPCC and SIGDOC conferences.

Field studies. What do you think of when you hear the terms contextual inquiry and ethnographic interview? Big companies? Substantial budgets? Schedules spanning months, if not years?

Tec-Ed has successfully adapted these two field methods for short–term user research projects. By retaining their key elements—exploring users’ behavior in the context of their own work during contextual inquiry, and observation of users’ settings and artifacts during ethnographic interviews—we can focus on obtaining the richest possible qualitative information in a limited time.

For details, read two recent papers by Tec-Ed consultants: Field Research in Commercial Product Development [PDF 138KB] and Ethnographic Interviews Guide Design of Ford Vehicles Website [PDF 99KB]. You’ll learn why field research is an important component of any user research program, and how it’s different from simply visiting customers. Plus, you’ll discover—through real–life examples—how the adapted methodologies work.

Assessing website usability. No matter how long it’s been up, a website is a work in progress. Revising the information architecture, updating the content, and refining the visual design are ongoing activities. And when you’re not working on the structure, content, or design, you’re assessing the usability of the site to make sure the improvements you’ve made really do enhance the user experience.

Laboratory usability testing and heuristic evaluation are two popular methods for assessing website usability. But is user testing always necessary? And when is heuristic evaluation appropriate?

Reconsider when to use the two methods by reading our classic paper Usability Studies of WWW Sites: Heuristic Evaluation vs. Laboratory Testing [PDF 78KB]. It describes the strengths and weaknesses of each method, to illustrate issues of special interest to website designers.

Usable online documentation. Like everything else, documentation has been evolving: from nonexistent to voluminous to minimalist, and from printed to online. The benefits of online documentation are well known and accepted—reduced printing and distribution costs, integration of instruction and support in the product, and new and efficient ways to access information.

Yet customers often resist online documentation. What can we do to encourage its use? For starters, we can make sure the online documentation is at least as easy to use as a printed book.

Since Tec-Ed’s founding in 1967, our services have evolved with the form and function of documentation. Today we offer a soup–to–nuts suite of user research, UI design, and information design services. As part of this suite, we’ve developed a structured process for evaluating the usability of online documentation, plus a list of heuristics for navigating through and finding content. Read about them in our paper Structured Heuristic Evaluation of Online Documentation [PDF 182KB].

Growing to serve you better. After three tough years, we’re seeing signs the economy is turning around. Businesses have started spending again—although cautiously, of course—on activities to improve the user experience of their products, boost customer satisfaction, and increase competitiveness. As a first step, the number of inquiries coming to us for usability and documentation services is on the rise.

That’s why Tec-Ed has added four employees to our management and consultant ranks. The new additions expand the breadth and depth of Tec-Ed’s skills, and provide an office convenient to Chicago–area clients:

• Scott Watkins, chief operating officer
• Garett Dworman, Ph.D., senior consultant specializing in knowledge management analysis and design in our Palo Alto office
• Deborah Hinderer Sova, senior usability specialist in our new Milwaukee office
• Mike Toleikis, documentation specialist

Upcoming events:

• International Professional Communication Conference (IPCC), September 22 to 24 in Orlando. Tec-Ed will present a paper on “Usable Computers for the Elderly: Applying Coaching Experiences” at this IEEE–sponsored event.
• Conference of the Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Documentation (ACM SIGDOC), October 12 to 15 in San Francisco. Tec-Ed will present a paper on “Alternative Methods for Field Usability Research.”

(As always, these 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).

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