Usable Content in a Post-Document Worldjmonberg/415/Schedule_files/Usable Content RPI...

Usable Content in a Post-Document World STC Major Grant Proposal

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Usable Content

in a Post-Document WorldCheryl [email protected]

Audrey [email protected]

Jan [email protected]

Roger [email protected]

Robert [email protected]

Patricia [email protected]

James [email protected]

Language, Literature and CommunicationRensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Troy, New York 12180

September 19, 2006



Brief Table of ContentsExecutive Summary ....................................3Problem Description.....................................3Activities to Date .........................................3Research Design and Methodology ..............15

Objectives.................................................................... 15Design.......................................................................... 15Projects ........................................................................ 17

Cross-Cultural Graphics.......................................... 17Cultural Websites .................................................... 17Web Gallery Interface............................................. 18Wikis for Collaboration .......................................... 18Distance Education Environment ........................... 19

Deliverables .................................................20Project Feasibility.........................................21References....................................................23Appendices ..................................................26



Executive SummaryThe Usable Content Project aims to develop a set of useful paradigms for the analysis, design, and testing of usablecontent in a post-document world. In planning work supported by the STC, we have brought together amultidisciplinary team of Rensselaer faculty and students to explore a variety of post-document exemplars anddevelop an over-arching framework for what makes them usable. Our suggestion is that post-documents move usersfrom control through identity and toward community, using a process clearly different from traditional documents.As a consequence, traditional metrics of usability — efficiency, accuracy, and satisfaction — are no longer adequatefor post-documents. With further funding from the STC, we propose to use a combination of formal and informalmethods to create and test this overarching model to produce a Post Document Toolkit made up of (1) a set ofHeuristics for Making Post-Documents Usable, and (2) an associated set of Metrics for Post-Document Usability.Five projects provide breadth to the proposed research: in cross-cultural graphics, in cultural websites, in webgallery interfaces, in wikis for collaboration, and in distance education environments. Combining an iterative designprocess focused on user collaborations with formal testing using usability metrics, we propose to develop two newkinds of knowledge with respect to post-document usability: First, new knowledge about post-documentdevelopment in the form of a series of case studies; and, second, new knowledge about post-document usability inthe form of new usability heuristics and accompanying metrics. Through reports to the STC, through outreach to theSTC membership, and through publication of an STC monograph, we aim to support the efforts of the Society forTechnical Communication to move technical communicators into a post-document world.

Problem DescriptionThe goal of the Usable Content Project continues to be the development of a set of useful paradigms for the analysis,design, and testing of usable content in a post-document world. To meet this challenge, the Usable Content Teamhas used the planning work supported by the STC to look closely at a wide range of post-documents:

• Cross-Cultural Graphics intended to communicate health information;• Cultural Websites aimed to serve indigenous populations;• Interactive Three-Dimensional Graphics intended to support procedural instructions;• Web Gallery Interfaces designed as pathways to community resources for children and their families;• Serious Games supporting those suffering from chronic disease; and• Distance Learning Environments aimed at working professionals.

In addition, and to provide a focus this analysis, we have also examined the Document, using a recent winner of theSTC International Publications Competition as our exemplar.

Throughout this work, our constant questions have been: What makes this post-document usable? How is this post-document different than traditional documents? What are the dimensions along which post-documents vary? Whatdoes it take to design such post-documents? To open this proposal, we review this work, first providing anoverview of our activities, next describing the specific documents and post-documents that concerned us, and finallyconcluding with the overarching framework for the work we propose to carry out with further funding from theSTC.

Activities to DateThe work of the Usable Content Project was carried out in the context of the Usable Content Seminar, a for-creditgraduate seminar that met eight times over the course of fifteen weeks during spring 06. Rather than adhere to atraditional week-by-week schedule, we used flexible meeting times ranging from one to five hours tailored to projectneeds. A complete schedule of activities is given in Appendix 1.

Seminar activities were designed for the exchange of information among teams and to provide accountability.Major deliverables included:

(a) an exemplary post-document,



(b) the “Top Hits” in the literature relative to that post-document,(c) an analysis of what made that post-document usable, and(d) public presentation of work.

One of the most successful components of the seminar was a five-hour design charette, an intense design experiencecommonly used in architecture, that allowed the teams to interact in depth with each other’s post-document

exemplars and develop ideas for our emerging framework. Public presentationwas arranged through a departmental colloquium to which members of our localSTC chapter were invited (see Figure 1). We have also been accepted as a panelpresentation at the upcoming IEEE Professional Communication Conference.

In addition to these plenary activities, individual project teams met for anotherthirty hours to further individual projects. Altogether, seven teams participatedin the seminar, a total of seventeen participants: eight faculty members, six PhDstudents, two undergraduates, and one alum.

Feedback from participants suggested that the format was highly successful.Graduate students commented that the quality and depth of interaction was quiteunlike normal graduate courses. Faculty valued the chance to interact withcolleagues about their work in depth. As a result, we have decided to

incorporate further seminars into the work planned for the major grant.

In the next sections, we review the work of the individual team in the seminar as well as the overarching frameworkwe produced as a group.

The DocumentTo provide a basis for developing concepts of usability for a post-document world, the Usable Content Seminaranchored its work in an analysis of the traditional document. We were particularly interested in understanding thecriteria that had been used to define traditional document quality and to analyze how those criteria applied or failedto apply to post-documents.

We found that three sources in the literature provided an interesting picture of the development of principles ofdocument design. One of the most useful early documents came out of the American Institute for Research (AIR),an early leader in the Plain English movement. The principles that Felker, et. al. (1981) present cover documentorganization, writing, typographical principles and graphic principles. A second more recent work on documentdesign comes from Karen Schriver (1997) who served as director of the Communication Design Center, an earlyAIR partner. Schriver covers three primary aspects of document design, audience analysis, typography, andintegrating graphics and text, and closes with an argument for usability testing. The last source takes usinternational. Although the Plain English movement is not longer an active force in the United States, theCommunication Research Institute of Australia (CRIA) continues to work under a national mandate for plainlanguage in public documents. In his description of the criteria that sustain readers’ interactions with text, CRIAdirector Sless (2004) suggests that documents should be easy to use, efficient, and productive.

It is interesting to note the differences among these three. In Schriver’s work in 1997, the traditional concerns oforganization and good writing present in Felker, et. al. in 1981 have dropped out to be replaced by the morefunctional mandate to pay attention to audience. By the time we reach Sless in 2004, functional usability has cometo dominate. Principles like, “discuss things that affect many people before those that affect few” or “put content intime sequence,” — both from Felker — have disappeared. Principles for what the documents should be (in timesequence, for example) have been replaced by mandates for how they should be produced (tested for usability, inparticular).

Returning to the CRIA framework for document usability, two additional aspects deserve our attention, one thatpoints to a recurring problematic in usability and the other to a more promising aspect. To begin with theproblematic: In describing their usability process, Sless describes CRIA as treating documents as being in a“pathological” state that can be restored to health by a document designer using the arsenal of document designtechniques. This assumption of disease or deficit is not an uncommon approach to usability. A similar philosophy



underlies the work of another foundational work, Weiss’ 1991 text on writing usable documentation. Here Weissdescribes the work of the documentation specialists in terms of remedying deficits and reducing noise. The user,according to Weiss, is one who has an information deficit. The job of the technical communicator is to create adocument that will prevent the user from misusing the material by controlling for noise and error. Good userdocumentation, according to Weiss, seeks to “control the user” to make sure that she or he does what they aresupposed to do. Post-documents, as we shall see, no longer assume there is a canonical path or strive for this level

of designer control.

The second and more promising aspects of the CRIA work lies inthe acknowledgement of the importance not only of factors thatsustain reading (which we reviewed above) but also factors thatencourage people to read in the first place. Sless lists thefollowing as the attributes of a document that encourage people toread: the document should be credible, respectful, attractive,physically appropriate, and socially appropriate. All of theseattributes come into play prior to engagement with the documentitself and lie outside of the scope of traditional usability.Beginning with the assumption that a document will be used,usability studies often go on to measures the effects of that use interms of metrics such as efficiency, effectiveness, andsatisfaction. But what if the document fails to cross the thresholdinto use? As we shall see, post-documents appear to take what wehave come to call recruitment quite seriously.

For us, the abstract principles and issues of document usabilitybecame clearer through the analysis of a specific documentexemplar. To insure that we were looking at a good document,we turned to the winners of the STC International TechnicalPublications Competition, specifically the iMac G5 User's Guide,which was a winner in the Category of Hardware/SoftwareCombination Guides. We focused in particular on the section on

adding memory and, for comparison sake, looked at two post-documents covering the same material, a LegitMemory Review (http://www.legitreviews.com/article/215/1/), which was the # 1 hit in a Google search for “iMacG5 adding memory,” and Moblog, The Mobile Log of Ryan Kawailani Ozawa(http://www.lightfantastic.org/imr/extras/moblog/archives/003054.html), which was the # 1 hit in a Google imagesearch for the same terms.

As shown in Figure 2, the G5 manual illustrates well the principles of document usability laid out in the literaturereviewed earlier. Type size and color have been used to call outdocument functions. Warnings appear in clearly labeled boxes.Chapters open with information on what the chapter contains.Elsewhere, the table of contents and index provide alternative routesto information. Procedures are laid out in numbered steps.Graphics are beautifully done, with call outs, and integrated withthe text. Overall, this document is an example of high design, onethat makes full use of the apparatus of the book, the principles oftypography, and technical illustration.

The two post-documents we compared were less well-designed.The Legit Memory Review opens with an amateurish picture of acluttered desktop. Even more amateurish, Moblog is made up of astring of pictures of “my iMac” taken to document an attempt atmemory upgrade (see Figure 3).

In addition to lacking high design, the two post-documents broughtto the memory task two features missing in our exemplar documentbut characteristics of many post-documents. To begin with, they



both make an effort to contextualize their content to a specific place and time using a narrative. For the LegitMemory Review, the story is one of the reviewer’s visit to an old friend:

On a recent trip to California we stopped by to visit an old time friend who is just starting to mixhis own music and create his own tracks from his home. After purchasing an Apple G5, speakers,microphones, amplifiers, guitars, a computer desk, and Pro Tools with the Digi 002 rack hethought he was ready to lay down some music and make some songs. Now that over ten thousanddollars was spent he finally realized that he already needed to upgrade his system because hisaudio editing software took so much application memory that he was unable to run any otherprograms and was having slow system performance when using many different audio tracks.

For Moblog, the story is a pictorial account of the author’s own upgrade, “my iMac G5” (see Figure 3).

In addition, both post-documents pay a great deal of attention to affect, one of the keys to recruitment. In the LegitMemory Review, the reader is repeatedly reassured that the process is not a difficult one: “While the system is sleekwith no obvious handles or case doors it is very simple to take apart.” In addition, the user is invited to join inappreciating Apple’s design prowess:

Once the cover is removed one can see how tightly Apple crammed everything into the iMac G5case. Much to our amazement the memory slots are located on the right hand side and nothingneeds to be done to access them.

Though less attuned to users, Moblog also invokes appreciation for Apple: “Adding RAM to my iMac G5. Theinsides are almost as pretty as the outside.”

This kind of encouragement and praise was absent from our exemplary document. In fact, the only appeals to affectare negative, coming in the form of warnings:

Warning: The ambient light sensor is located to the left of the middle screw, as shown in theillustration. Don’t mistake the ambient light sensor for a screw. Sticking a screwdriver or othersharp object in the ambient light sensor could damage your computer.

With this warning, we see a good illustration of the feature of designer control mentioned earlier: the documentattempts to control readers, moving them away from a dangerous possibility (damaging your computer) and back onthe canonical upgrade path (the middle screw). At the same time, the document remains indifferent to recruitment.Indeed, in the face of such a warning, a nervous reader might abandon the task of memory upgrade altogether.

Neither the Legit Memory Review nor Moblog can be considered exemplary post-documents. They do, however,suggest ways in which usability shifts as one moves from traditional documents that have occupied the attention ofthe technical communicator in the 20th century to the post-documents that are fast becoming the center of ourattention. As we move in the next sections to looking at the exemplary post-documents discussed in the UsableContent Seminar, we will see further evidence that the high design, canonical states, and designer control thatepitomize usable documents are indeed being shifted by post-documents whose use of amateur design, commitmentto user control, attention to recruitment, and focus on narrative present new challenges for the technicalcommunicator.

Cross-Cultural GraphicsThe first post-document exemplar we examined in the Usable Content Seminar was the cross-cultural graphic shownin Figure 4. In the summer of 2003, Marie Rarieya, a Rensselaer graduate student, traveled home to Kenya toconduct a collaborative design workshop with Kenyan laypeople on the design of an HIV/AIDS awareness andprevention campaign. In a participatory manner, within a community computing center, a small group of Kenyansworked under Marie’s supervision to create informational document designs for their fellow Kenyans using visuallanguage from their own indigenous iconography. Simultaneously, by way of a web-based, virtual design studio, ateam of Rensselaer faculty, including co-PI Bennett, indirectly observed and had limited participation in theKenyans’ design process. The workshop generated a series of print documents of which Figure 4 is one.

Usable Content in a Post-Document World Revised Major Grant Proposal


In the Usable Content Seminar, the question was along what dimensions should this exemplar be evaluated? Inanswering this question, we begin with the intellectual chasm that exists within graphics communication communitybetween theorists who posit that meaning is created by visual stimulation and those who posit that meaning issocially constructed. Graphics that rely on visual simulation to communicate meaning typically are created bydesign professionals and represent high design. Graphics that rely on social construction to create meaning tend to

be collaboratively designed with laypeople andrepresent user control.

In assessing the usability of cross-cultural graphics,we need to consider both perspectives. In otherwords, the exemplar shown in Figure 4 needs to beevaluated according to its visual appeal and culturalresonance. Its visual appeal will rely on acombination of the globally-distributed features (e.g.airplane emergency instructions) and formal/explicitcharacteristics (e.g. a stop sign) of the exemplar. Itscultural resonance will rely on culturally-specificfeatures (e.g. graphic symbols like a red circle) andimplicit/embedded characteristics (i.e. visual codingsystems that lie within an aesthetic like color). Bothvisual appeal and cultural resonance require ananalysis of the final outcome as well as the process

by which the outcome was achieved.

We believe the exemplar in Figure 4 is unique in that it is a post-document that incorporates the ideals of bothperspectives. That is, it was designed by incorporating user control with laypeople guided by high design principlesderived by professionals. David Berlo’s 1960 model of communication offers a useful framework for conductingthis assessment. His model includes the following components:

• encoder (i.e. author of content)• decoder (i.e. target audience, users)• medium (i.e. print or electronic channel of delivery)• context (i.e. environment in which the message is interpreted)• content (i.e. the message that’s communicated)• code (i.e. formal considerations like aesthetics and style).

Within each component, the level of noise should be assessed. According to visual communication theorist JorgeFrascara (2004), noise includes any “distraction that appears between the information and the audience, therebyinterfering with, distorting, obliterating, or hiding the message.”

Berlo’s model provides a general framework for analyzing the communicative effectiveness of cross-culturalgraphics. Other interdisciplinary theory and research in graphics and technical communication can be used toanalyze the visual appeal and resonance of a graphic’s visual coding system that includes color, type, format, andusage of symbols with the culture(s) of its target audience(s). The writings of designers Ellen Lupton (2005), RonnieLipton (2002), and Kate Clair & Cynthia Busic-Snyder (2005) offer formal expertise regarding the effectiveness ofthe coding system that includes culturally-specific, formal and explicit, implicit and embedded visual language.Other literature confirmed the effectiveness of informational and promotional document design as tools for HIVprevention and awareness (Choi and Coates, 1994; Kiwanuka-Tondo and Synder, 2002).

Cultural WebsitesThe next post-document we examined in the Usable Content Seminar was the contrasting set of cultural websitesshown in Figure 5. They include the Canadian Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) website(http://www.aptn.ca) and the Australian Us Mob website (http://usmob.com.au). By deliberately situatingthemselves at the intersection of indigenous and non-indigenous cultures, these cultural websites purposefullystraddle the line between cultural ideologies. Both websites use narrative and design to visualize shared culturalvalues. However, the analysis in the Usable Content Seminar suggests that the design of the APTN site favors



Western, or dominant, culture with minimal emphasis on user experience through storytelling while the design ofthe UsMob site favors indigenous cultural models that emphasize storytelling.

The theoretical background for this analysis includes research in five main areas. The first, cultural dimensions ofdesign, includes foundational works by Hofstede (1980), Hall (1973, 1976), Triandis (1995), and Marcus andBaumgartner (2004). The basic tenant of these theorists includes the characterization of a culture in terms of variousdimensions such as power distance, individualism and collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, and time orientation. Thesecond research area focuses on interface design for indigenous cultures. This research includes work by Henderson(1996), McLoughlin (1999), Lave and Wenger (1991), and Ziguras (1999). In this research paradigm, dynamics ofindigenous cultures are examined within the context of multimedia design for online audiences with diversecognitive models and communication styles.

The third area is a new area of research on indigenous storytelling in website design. This research includes thework of Baltruschat (2004) and Niezen (2005) who evaluate the cross-cultural networking potential of digitalstorytelling in websites and other new media. The fourth area of research is visual social semiotics and visualanthropology, and the work of Kress and van Leeuwen (1996) as well as Coover (2001). These researchers showhow images create narratives that define viewer engagement with a given culture. The last research area isstorytelling in business and marketing. Researchers such as Sole and Wilson (1999) and Gruen, Rauch, Redpath, andRuettinger (2002) show how storytelling is used in business to facilitate product development and improveorganizational communication.

Using this theoretical base to ground our analysis, we found that the APTN web page, as shown in Figure 5, has thetype of formal design characteristic of Western design, representing the social hierarchies that dominate Westernculture. Specifically, it has a formal design characterized by straight lines and framed, boxed areas of information.In contrast, the informal design of the UsMob site signifies the circularity of life with a fluid, organic layout as wellas characters and stories that “speak” to the user.

The exemplars also illustrate two different forms of community engagement. The APTN site highlights staticpictures of individuals, representing a Western preoccupation with individualism rather than the indigenous focus ongroups and collectivism. The UsMob design, on the other hand, uses group pictures and storytelling to highlight theindigenous emphasis on community and the interconnectivity of the people.

As a consequence, although the content of both websites deals with indigenous cultures, the immersive qualities ofthe sites are quite different. On the APTN site, the content focuses on the presentation of information about the“stories” on the television shows, but does not encourage an interactive, immersive dialog with the user. On theother hand, the UsMob site includes numerous types of interactive content such as games, dialogs with websitecharacters, chat spaces, and interactive films, all of which use various levels of narrative to engage the user andpromote a sense of understanding and identity with indigenous peoples.



Finally, good storytelling can create a seamless, immersive environment that becomes a total user experience. Onthe APTN site the total user experience is limited by the static, hierarchical organization of the information and thelinks that take the user to other websites. Moreover, the hierarchical organization of the APTN site guides the userthrough the website by leading the user to specific links. Alternatively, the design of the UsMob site featuresinteractive stories and panoramic photos that engage the viewer in a different cultural experience. The informal,organic design of the UsMob site encourages the user to explore the site and create individual paths and culturalnarratives.

Interactive 3-D GraphicsThe post-document shown in Figure 6 is an innovative 3-D graphic that provides interactive support for users ofprocedural information. The support is accomplished via experimental software, SphereView„, designed by D.Michael Sharp, a PhD candidate in Communication and Rhetoric at Rensselaer. Under Sharp’s guidance, membersof the Usable Content Seminar were able to use SphereView„ to examine the usability of interactive 3-D graphics forprocedural instruction.

The literature of 3-D graphics relies heavy on the concepts of canonical view, a variation on the assumption ofcanonical path that we discussed in connections with documents generally. Palmer, Rosch, and Chase (1981) werethe first to use the term canonical view. Their experiments used a goodness rating in which participants rated 12photographs of different views, taken from 12 different objects. Views were from top, front and back as well as 45°variations. The results indicated that as the images moved away from the canonical views, the longer subjects tookto name the objects in the pictures. Further analysis suggested that participants consistently preferred the sameviewpoints, independent of the task. In a similar vein, Verfaillie and Boutsen (1995) explored the concept ofcanonical view using 3D modeling software to create a “viewing sphere” that would obtain ten different views of theobject. Like Palmer et al. (1981), they found that the majority of the objects were rated as best view when they werein a turned and elevated position. These views simultaneously reveal parts of the object’s side, top, and front orback.

Blanz, Tarr, Buelthoff, and Vetter (1996), while noting consistency between Palmer et al.’s (1981) and Verfaillieand Boutsen’s (1999) finding on preference for viewpoints, suggest that the fixed set of viewpoints offered to userslimited the results. To provide for more user control, Blanz et al. (1996) used a computer to allow directmanipulation of 3-D graphics to overcome many of the technical limitations of the previous work. In theirexperiment, Blanz et al. (1996) asked people to “[s]uppose you were making a brochure and you tried to give yourcustomers the best possible impression of the objects on the screen. Which views would you choose?” The resultsindicated that participants preferred off-axis views to straight front or side views, in other words, non-planar views,reaffirming a desire that more surfaces be visible simultaneously.



Our explorations using SphereView„ suggest that this post-document shares the tendency to create usability througha move away from a canonical path and toward user control. Once research moved away from a set of fixedviewpoints established though the high design of documents, users used the interactive control of SphereView„ toexplore multiple viewpoints, avoiding views that made certain parts hard to discern and preferring views thatrevealed more information.

Web Gallery InterfaceThe next post-document exemplar that drew the attention of the Usable Content Seminar was the Web GalleryInterface shown in Figure 6. These Web Galleries are being developed as part of the Connected Kids informationsystem currently serving city and county governments, youth-services organizations, public and private schools, andfamilies and children in Troy and Rensselaer County. The Connected Kids information system includes a databaseof youth-services information with sophisticated search capabilities, a distributed data-input function, and separateinterfaces for parents, teens, and kids—all accessible via the World Wide Web (Harrison, Zappen, and Adali, 2005;Zappen, Adali, and Harrison, 2006). Galleries of children’s artwork and photos, the source of the Web GalleryInterface, are also accessible via the WWW.

The Web Gallery Interface exemplar in Figure 6 are intended to serve as a pathway to the children’s servicesavailable at Knickerbacker park, a local skating rink. The first image provides access to more information aboutclasses for beginning skaters; the second about organized teams. Each appeals to a different set of constituents, bothreflecting current users through the images and recruiting new users to the community organization. The galleriesreflect current thinking about usable interfaces for children (Gilutz and Nielsen, undated): they are designed withoutscrolling (p. 23), they provide for motion and sound (p. 49), they allow for user control of the slideshow (p. 25), andthey use photos to invoke personal memories (p. 50).

The Web Gallery Interface also reflects the underlying principle of co-design or what Zappen and his colleagueshave called user-designer-programmer collaboration (Zappen, et. al., 2006). That is, they have been based uponongoing interactions between users—primarily organizational users—designers, and programmers. For theConnected Kids Galleries, Zappen and his colleagues engaged in a series of exchanges with organizational users toenhance the presentation of children’s artwork and photos. After a series of experiments, they settled upon theslideshow format shown in Figure 6 as the best method of displaying the images since it permitted the maximum ofuser control and manipulation of the images. To further enhance the image displays, colorful and attractivebackgrounds have been created for the slideshows to reflect the local organization.

The development of the Connected Kids information system is rooted in the literature on user-centered design.Research on user-centered design and user-developer co-design emphasizes the need for user engagement in designprocesses extending from the development of system specifications, prototypes, and working models to theincorporation of user innovations during and after implementation of information systems and other informationtechnology applications. This research originated in Scandinavia (Bødker, Grønbæck, and Kyng, 2006; Bødker andGrønbæck, 1998; Grønbæck, Grudin, Bødker, and Bannon, 1993) and has been adopted in the United States as a set



of principles and practices variously described as contextual (Beyer, H., and Holtzblatt, 1998), cooperative (Bødker,et. al, 2006; Bødker and Grønbæck, 1998; Grønbæck, et. al., 1993), participatory (Schuler, and Namioka, 1993), anduser-centered design (Johnson, 1998) and as co-design between users and developers (Spinuzzi, 2003). Morerecently, research on the development of information-technology applications for digital government hasacknowledged the important role of users, who enact information technologies as they interpret, implement, and usethese technologies in the context of their own organizations (Fountain, 2001).

Serious GamesOne of the most challenging post-document exemplars analyzed in the Usable Content Seminar was the seriousgame shown in Figure 8. This exemplar, known as Brigadoon, is a serious game environment built for people withAutism and Asperger's Syndrome (Lester, 2005). Built on a software platform known as Second Life, it allows its

residents tocreate a 3-Dvirtual world(http://secondlife.com).Brigadoon isone of thosevirtualworlds,createdespecially toprovide high-functioningpeople withAutism andAsperger'sSyndromewith a

“perceptually immersive socialization environment” where they can learn to interact with others through repetitionand experimentation one step removed from the real world, with less stress and fewer consequences, an approachthat seems particularly appropriate for those with autism (McCallum, 2004). Other health-related sites have alsobeen set up in Second Life (Terdiman, 2005)

Because it is entirely created by users, the Second Life platform epitomizes the quality of user control in post-documents. Brigadoon, furthermore, does not assume a single canonical path for learning social interaction.Instead it relies on the appeal of the immersive environment and the loose regulation of a small closed communityfor recruitment. In the Usable Content Seminar, we explored the ways that model of Brigadoon could be extendedto create another health support environment, this one for addiction recovery. Like people with Autism andAsperger's Syndrome, those in addiction recovery depend heavily on a safe social environment in which to rebuildrelationships, establish new patterns for living, and avoid relapse. We imagined an environment that would providea mix of client-defined environments with professionally-provided therapy.

Our problems in bringing this post-document into being taught the members of the Usable Content Seminar a greatdeal about usability in a post-document world. The set of open-ended but clumsy tools provided by the Second Lifeplatform made it difficult for us to imagine users actually building their own world. Furthermore, we found thatrecovering addicts needed more than just the opportunity to interact. In most cases, we wanted to provide them witha specific kind of interaction, the therapeutic interaction. In some cases, we actually wanted to restrict theirinteractions so that they would be unable, for instance, to arrange to purchase drugs in the virtual world. Both ofthese requirements are examples of our desire for more designer control than the Second Life platform allowed.They further illustrate the way that requirements that arise in the context of specific user environments can make apost-document good for one set of users (such as those with Autism and Asperger's Syndrome) and inadequate foranother set of users (such as those in addition recovery).



Distance Learning EnvironmentsThe final post-document we examined in the Usable Content Seminar was an exemplar of a distance learningenvironment aimed at working professionals. Our exemplar, shown in Figure 9, is taken from two of Rensselaerdistributed-education courses, “Foundations of HCI Usability” offered by Roger Grice in Fall 2005 and “ElectronicCoaching Systems” offered by Bob Krull in Spring 2006.

The courses are supported withseveral electronic tools:

• A Web site that containspdf files of all lecturenotes, class exercises,sample papers andexaminations, and abulletin board and meansfor students to check theirgrades.

• A video stream thatdistributes live lectures todistance students in aWindows Media Playerwindow. The stream isarchived for reference onlater occasions.

• A separate electronic tool (Elluminate), shown in Figure 9, that supplies students with real-time chat, anelectronic whiteboard, voice over IP, and the capacity originate video of their own.

In the Usable Content Seminar, we analyzed the environments in these courses as a total user experience. Ourquestion was, How do we use technical facilities and instructional structures to engage our students and optimizetheir educational experience? This is no easy question. To be successful, professional education must fit the workschedules, work patterns, and expectations of students. But students who are tied to courses only through theircomputers may feel isolated, may not be able to bring their needs and comprehension to the awareness of

instructors, and may not be able to gain fully from theknowledge and effort of their fellow students. Indeed, althoughdistance courses do have the benefit of providing minimaldisruption of their workday, drop-out rates for computer-supported training can approach 50 percent (Clark and Mayer,2003; Horton, 2000)

Our exemplars were designed to counteract these difficulties.Our instructional model, shown in Figure 10, exemplifies Kolblearning cycles (Kolb 1983). It does not differ substantially

from other models (e.g. Alessi and Trollip, 2000; Gagne, Briggs and Wager, 1992), and captures the essence of howwe make students feel like an integral part of a learning community. Following Roberts and his colleagues (Dufourand Eaker, 1989; Roberts and Pruit, 2003), we employ many of the best practices for involving mature students indistributed learning classrooms:

• Students have access to class materials (PowerPoint slides, handouts, guidelines, and forms) before class.• During class, students can talk with the instructor and other students. If the talking is done as an online

chat, a record of the chat is kept in an archive.• Students can see the central classroom and the people (instructor, students, and support staff) in it.• Students can converse over telephone lines (a phone bridge) or through voice-over-Internet protocols

(VOIP).

All of these techniques aim to foster a strong sense of engagement on the part of students, providing gut-level(emotional) connections—challenges, immediate feedback, lively pacing — and variety of techniques and



approaches to subject matter that move beyond mere usability (Norman 2005) to what Blythe, Overbeeke, Monk,and Wright (2004) term “funology.

Despite these technological and instructional innovations, the challenge of maintaining an active learningcommunity in a distance learning environment is a real one. To explore this challenge further in the Usable ContentSeminar, we conducted a survey of students enrolled in our exemplar courses, focusing in particular on acomparison of the user experience of the on-campus students and those working at a distance. The preliminaryresults (see Appendix 2 for further details) show that, though there may be challenges, it is possible to in involvedistance students by using the tools described above. Overall, distance students seem to find the situation workable.Interestingly, the experience of the courses is different for the distance and on-campus students. Indeed, thereappears to be two distinct communities. The distance students are tied together via electronic interaction and livethrough it; the on-campus students are not. As a consequence, in our exemplars, the ties between distance studentsmay be even stronger than those among on-campus students.

Usability in a Post-Document World: An Emerging FrameworkThroughout the discussions of the exemplars just reviewed, three critical tradeoffs have emerged to characterizewhat makes post-document usable. As diagrammed in Figure 11, the first and most obvious tradeoff concerned thelocus of control. In traditional documents like user documentation (Weiss, 1991), the document designer is expectedto be in control. In the post-document exemplars we examined, by contrast, control had been ceded to the user in

some way, whether it be the modest navigational control wesaw in the web galleries exemplar, the intriguing control ofan interactive 3-D graphic exemplar, or the overwhelmingcontrol of the serious game exemplar. Not surprisingly,control has been a much-discussed aspect of the new post-documents. Kress (2004), for example, talks about the waythe screen privileges the will of users, whereas the bookprivileges the will of authors.

Interactivity is a concept closely related to control. Gurak(2001) notes that interactivity is one of the critical newdimensions of on-line texts. One of the main featuresdistinguishing the UsMob cultural website from the moretraditional APTN site, for example, is its interactivity. And,as we saw in our distance learning exemplars, post-documents often allow users to interact not only withcontent, but also with one another.

The second tradeoff emerging from the analysis of our post-document exemplars was that between high design andamateur design. In our analysis, we saw that traditionaldocuments prized high design, but we often saw that withthe emergence of user control came an inevitable decline in

design standards. Obviously, both the Legit review and the Moblog fall far short of the design quality exhibited bythe STC winner, the iMac G5 User’s Guide. But even in projects where designers were heavily involved, standardsof good design needed to be modified in the face of local cultural as our exemplar of a cross-cultural graphicindicates.

In the literature on post-documents, little attention has been paid to this tradeoff between high and amateur design.Indeed, much of the literature suggests that post-documents require more design work than their documentpredecessors. Reynolds (2003), for example, notes that new information designs are more likely the work ofmultidisciplinary teams that can bring an array of skills to the table. Kress (2004) suggests that new mediadocuments are more complex than “books” and therefore require a more sophisticated design process.

These competing claims about design tradeoffs in post-documents can be reconciled, we believe, by noting that postdocuments require not so much a lowering of design standards as a shift in the locus of design work. In post-documents that invite user collaboration many of the traditional areas of high design — text and graphics — are left



to the user, and the work of the designer moves “under the covers,” to the functionality that will allow that user inputand to the orchestration of an increasingly complex set of media.

The third tradeoff we encountered in our analysis of post-document exemplars was that between having a universalcanonical path and providing a contextualized, often personal, narrative. As our analysis of exemplars indicates,digital storytelling is an emerging motif in post-documents: a technology review opens with a story of a friend’sneed to upgrade; an exploration of the cultural of Australian indigenous cultures highlights the stories of individuals;a search for information about an ice skating rink brings you to your own daughter’s picture.

Underlying this use of contextualize narrative is thegrowing prominence of identity and community onthe post document arena. If the underlyingdocument process could be said to involve theconstruction of a canonical path that will help theuser avoid error, the post-document process mightbe conceptualized quite differently along the linesshown in Figure 12.

With this diagram, the product of our 5-hour designcharette, the members of the Usable Content Seminar attempted to articulate what seemed to be the underlyingmovement in post-documents. First, we began by asking ourselves, Why do users want control? What do they dowith it? The answer seemed clearly to involve the exploration of identity, whether the identity of an indigenouspeople, of a recovering addict, or of a local community organization. The users of our exemplary post-documentswere not so much engaged in getting information or completing a task as in using system-offered choices to exploretheir own identities.

And, we asked ourselves, for what purpose is such identity work supported? Why would do post-documentsdesigners create environments in which such identity work is afforded? The answer to this second question alsoseemed clear: to build community. Motives for community building are various, of course. The designer ofBrigadoon is the president of a non-profit dedicated to providing help to those suffering from neurological disorders.Rensselaer’s distance learning environments have been designed to provide a good educational experience forworking professionals. The website of the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network provides broadcastinginformation in order to offer Canadians “a window into the remarkably diverse worlds of Indigenous peoples inCanada and throughout the world” (http://www.aptn.ca/content/view/21/31/).

For whatever motive, the technical communicator who aims to create post-documents, moving users from controlthrough identity and toward community, clearly faces a different task than traditional document design. Traditionalmetrics of usability — efficiency, accuracy, and satisfaction — are no longer an adequate yardstick with which tomeasure the post-document. Instead, we must ask questions like

• How much control does this post-document provide the user? Is it enough? Is it too much?• In what ways does this post-document afford identity work? How well does it succeed in allowing the

exploration of identity?• How does this post-document build community? What kinds of interactions does it allow? What kinds of

networks are built?

These questions, meant to be suggestive, clearly require a new body of knowledge on what makes content usable ina post-document world. In the rest of this proposal, we outline the project we propose to undertake with the supportof the Society for Technical Communication that will enable us to develop that body of knowledge and make itavailable to the STC membership.



Research Design and Methodology

ObjectivesOur proposal is to use a combination of formal and informal methods to answer the question, What makes post-documents usable? Our central goal is to address this question in as way that generalizes across and beyond thespecific post-document exemplars included in this project. As our track record from the planning grant suggests, weare certainly in it for the generalizations.

To make sure generalizations happen, however, we propose to organize our work plan around the goal of producingand testing a Post-Document Toolkit. This Toolkit will be made up of (1) a set of Heuristics for Making Post-Documents Usable, and (2) an associated set of Metrics for Post-Document Usability. This Toolkit will begenerated and tested through the phases of our work plan, shown in Figure 13 and discussed below. We believe thisrevised work plan more clearly addresses the need for generalizability and validation.

Changes in our team organization have also been made to insure generalizability and validation. We have askedRoger Grice to assume the role of usability test manager across the projects. Grice will be in charge of developingthe testing protocols, for leading the group discussion that will generate the Post-Document Tootkit, and forsupervising the testing and reporting of results. As a result, Grice will be able to insure a consistency and qualityacross project components.

DesignIn the five-phase process outlined in Figure 13, we start with an iterative design process. In Phase I in fall of 06, wewill finalize the post-document exemplars with which we have chosen to move forward. In Phase II, spring 07, wewill engage in a series of user collaborations to test the usability of these exemplars with informal methods, puttingour focus on the post-document feature and process reviewed earlier.

At the conclusion of this informal testing, we will work together to create the single set of Heuristics for MakingPost-Documents Usable. While we don’t expect all of these Heuristics to apply to all post-documents, we expect toproduce a set that contains some that are overarching and others whose applicability depends on the design choicesand/or context of the post-document being evaluated.

For the testing in Phase II, done in collaboration with users and potential users of our exemplars, we plan to use thefollowing evaluation methods:

• Think-aloud/talk-aloud protocols;• Observation of those using the exemplars;• Pre-use and post-use questionnaires to assess the evaluators’ satisfaction with the exemplars, the effectiveness

of the exemplar’s presentation of information, and the extent to which the exemplars make the information easyto use; and

• Other methods that may seem appropriate as Phase II progresses.

At the opening of Phase III, summer 07, we will use the results of this informal testing to articulate Metrics for Post-Document Usability. Combined into the Toolkit, these Heuristics and Metrics will then be used to guide therevisions that are made to the post-document exemplars. That is, each revision made will be tied explicitly to aheuristic and its associated metrics.

The next two phases turn to more formal methods. In Phase IV, fall 07, we will use the Metrics developed in PhaseII and later refined as a basis for a formal test of both the original and redesigned exemplars mentioned previously.Usability evaluations as described by Jacob Nielsen will be our primary evaluation method. We will also use surveyquestionnaires and direct observation of participants to gain insights beyond the scope of the usability metrics. Ifappropriate, we will revise the Metrics as a result of the testing.

Where possible, we will use Rensselaer’s campus facilities for usability testing; for outreach programs (for example,“Connected Kids”) we will use the facilities where the exemplar is more typically used. We plan to involve a wideand diverse group of students in the Phase IV evaluation; the group will include at a minimum:



• Rensselaer graduate students• Rensselaer undergraduate students• Rensselaer faculty• Rensselaer staff• Adults, adolescents, and children outside of the Rensselaer community.

We will report the results of the testing as well as modifications to our set of usability metrics. Overall, then, thesetests will represent a systematic evaluation of the Toolkit rather than a test of the kinds of ad hoc revisions that areoften produced with informal methods.

In Phase V, we will review the results of both sets of usability tests to refine the Post-Document Toolkit. In PhaseVI, we turn to the tasks of disseminating our results.

Date Phase Activity Outcome

Phase I Fall 06 Design Finalize exemplars A set of post-documentexemplars ready for informaltesting

Phase II Spring 07 Informal Testing Conduct informal tests ofexemplars. Use the results ofthese observations to generateHeuristics for Making Post-Documents Usable.

Case studies of the specificpost-documents.

Initial Heuristics for MakingPost-Documents Usable

PhaseIII

Summer 07 Redesign Associate Metrics for Post-Document Usability withHeuristics to produce completePost-Document Toolkit. UseToolkit to redesign exemplars.

Initial Metrics for Post-Document Usability

Redesigned exemplars

PhaseIV

Fall 07 Formal Testing Conduct formal testing oforiginal and redesignedexemplars using Metrics.

Usability test results forredesigned exemplars.

Phase V Spring 08 Generalization Review usability test results tovalidate and refine Heuristicsand Metrics. Revise into finalToolkit. Make preliminaryPresentation at STCConference.

Validation of Heuristics andMetrics.

Revised Post-DocumentToolkit

Presentation at the STC 08conference

PhaseVI

Summer 08thru Spring09

Dissemination Work with STC board toproduce short course for STCmembership on making post-documents usable. Make apresentation at the 09 STCconference. Completemanuscript for Usability in aPost-Document World

STC short course on UsableContent in a Post-DocumentWorld

Presentation at the STCConference 09

manuscript for the STC Pressreporting our results

Figure 13: Revised work plan with deliverables



ProjectsWith funding from the major grant, we propose to move forward with four of the six projects undertaken during ourplanning grant,1 and to add a new project exploring the use of wikis for collaboration. We have also clarified ourgoals in the Distance Education project to bring them into closer alignments with STC goals.

In the following, we describe each project in terms of the phases outlined above.

Cross-Cultural GraphicsIn the proposed work on Cross-Cultural Graphics, we aim to design and test health-related cross-cultural graphicssuitable for dissemination via personal communication technologies. These communication technologies — e-mail,cell phones, ipods, and personal digital assistants — are common in the third-world nations with which we haveworked. As early as 2001, for example, there were more than twice as many cell phones than there were landlines inCôte d'Ivoire. In this country, the PDA is already being used for the distribution of documents related to HIV/AIDS(se), though the material is far from usable. In particular, the guidelines are not formatted for PDA screens, andscreens are full of text that requires scrolling from side to side. With all their flaws, however, such efforts provideevidence for the demand for health information that can be disseminated through personal communicationtechnologies.

In Phase I of the proposed project, we will finalize a set of instructional cross-culturalgraphics related to HIV/AIDS suitable for sharing via personal communication technologies(see Figure 14 for an early idea). We will also extend our work developing an interactivewebsite to facilitate user collaborations at a distance. In Phase II, we will use this “designlab” to engage in user collaborations with African-American, Hispanic-American, Asian-American, European-American, multiracial, and other international users of personalcommunication technologies. In Phase III, we will use the results of these usercollaborations to redesign the cross-cultural graphics.

In Phases IV and V, we will bring the results of this work together in the development of acommon formal testing protocol, returning to some of the user communities used in ourinformal testing. The results of this work will be a case study of the design of a cross-cultural graphic, a set of heuristics for the development of cross-cultural graphics,generalizations about the usability of post-documents more broadly, and guidelinesconcerning the use of interactive web technology for user collaboration.

Cultural WebsitesIn the proposed work on Cultural Websites, we aim to explore and test the use of digital storytelling as an immersiveuser experience that promotes identity and community. The project will review research on the cultural dimensionsof design and evaluate how indigenous cultures use storytelling to create a sense of identity and engagement thatpromotes cultural awareness. Storytelling is an integral part of indigenous cultures. Today indigenous peoples usedigital storytelling on the World Wide Web to create a sense of community. This project will propose ways toincorporate research in cross-cultural design and storytelling into web designs for global networking. Storytellingcan create a sense of community and audience engagement that has significant implications for internationalcommunication in education, business, marketing, and e-commerce.

In Phase I of the proposed project, we will identify and analyze new exemplars that demonstrate storytelling as acommunication technique in website design for education and business. We will also work with the Emily CarrInstitute of Art + Design in Vancouver, British Columbia, to develop a protocol for user collaborations with FirstNations peoples (See letter of support from Brenda Crabtree, First Nations Coordinator at the Emily Carr Institute,Appendix 4). In Phase II, we will engage in user collaborations with indigenous and non-indigenous faculty and

1 The remaining two projects are not being carried forward because of personnel considerations. Katherine Isbister, the principleinvestigator for the serious games project, will be on leave in Fall 06. D. Michael Sharp, the graduate student developing the 3-Dinteractive graphics, will be completing his doctoral work in spring 07.



students at Emily Carr. In Phase III, we will use the results of these user collaborations to explore selective websitedesigns.

In Phases IV and V, we will bring the results of this work together in the development of a common formal testingprotocol, returning to the Emily Carr community. The results of this work will be a case study of the design of acultural website using digital storytelling, a set of heuristics for the development of websites using digitalstorytelling, generalizations about the usability of post-documents more broadly, and guidelines concerning workwith indigenous peoples for user collaboration.

Web Gallery InterfaceIn the proposed work on Web Gallery Interfaces, we aim to design and test the web gallery as a visual interface foran information system for children and their families. This project provides an important extension of theConnected Kids information system for Rensselaer Country in upstate New York, building on observations we havemade concerning users preferences for local visual information as a pathway to information rather than a standardsearch interface. Our efforts can be seen as part of a larger effort in digital government, the effort to engagecommunities with their civic institutions.

In Phase I of the proposed project, we will evaluate and finalize our current web gallery interface, exploring optionsfor further visual, textual, and audio enhancements. In particular, we plan to take photos for additional participantorganizations, create suitable a background image and photo collage for each organization, and develop a suitableaudio narrative for each organization. Our aim is to design detachable components of photo collages and amechanism for triggering an audio narrative for each component in the collages and each image in the slideshow foreach organization. In Phase II, we will engage local organizations in Rensselaer County (see letter of support fromPierce Hoyt, Director of Rensselaer County Youth Services, Appendix 4) in user collaborations. In Phase III, wewill use the results of these user collaborations to redesign the web gallery interface.

In Phases IV and V, we will bring the results of this work together in the development of a common formal testingprotocol, returning to the Rensselaer County communities used in our informal testing. The results of this work willbe a case study of the design of a web gallery interface, a set of heuristics for the development of visual interface fora community information system, generalizations about the usability of post-documents more broadly, andguidelines concerning user collaboration with local community organizations.

Wikis for CollaborationWikis, originally introduced by Ward Cunningham in 1995, have created a forum where multiple authors cancontribute to and revise a given document or set of documents. The word can refer to the open source software usedto power them or the collaborative text generated by such software; it derives from the Hawaiian word for “quick.”As both a medium for post-documents and a kind of post-document, wikis have changed the way we think aboutauthorship and complicated our ideas of what it means to “compose.” While the English language Wikipedia is thelargest extant wiki to date, many smaller wikis also exist. Increasingly companies, researchers, and instructors areturning to the wiki to provide a medium where productive project collaboration can flourish. Intellisync, a wirelesssoftware company, for example, uses wikis to coordinate its public relations efforts among four public relationsfirms worldwide (Baker), and SocialText a San Francisco-based start-up firm specializes in tailoring wiki softwarefor corporate needs. As of 2003 SocialText had more than 20 companies using their products (Cortese).

In the proposed work, we aim to explore and test the use of wikis as a viable means for collaboration. Ourexemplars come from Rensselaer’s new Center for Communication Practices, In the context of this center, wikis arebeing developed for use in three ways that mirror what might be developed by an STC practitioner. First, a Centerwiki will provide a forum through which faculty and students can communicate about writing across the disciplines.For example, students and faculty might work together to annotate model student assignments, generate guidelinesfor acquiring common skill sets, and revise key online documents. This use mirrors the practitoner use of a wiki as acommunication tool with customers. Second, a Center wiki will function as a private place where faculty can shareexperiences in communication intensive courses, describe assignments, and explore new ways in which they wouldlike to use writing, oral presentation, and multimedia composition. This use of wikis mirrors the practitioner use forcross-functional purposes. Third, Center wikis will be made available to support student and faculty team projects,



providing much needed space through which students can coordinate and archive their efforts. This use mirrors thepractitioner use of wikis for project support.

In Phase I of the proposed project, we will deploy Center wikis for the uses described above. In Phase II, we willengage students and faculty in the communication intensive program in informal testing. In Phase III, we will usethe results of these informal tests to redesign the wikis to be more usable. In Phases IV and V, we will deploy theredesigned wikis and use formal metrics to evaluate our redesigns. The results of this work will be a case study ofthe design of a collaborative wikis, a set of heuristics for the development of wikis, and generalizations about theusability of post-documents more broadly.

Distance Education EnvironmentIn the proposed work on Distance Education Environments, we aim to design and test a distance educationenvironment intended to support working professionals. Construction of the environment has been supported byRensselaer Polytechnic Institute; its testing for its usability in the education and training of working professionalswill be supported in part by the STC grant.

As more and more training is delivered at a distance, STC practitioners are increasingly called upon to develop anddeploy environments that will be both effective and reduce travel costs. Distance education environments aretypically comprised of both asynchronous and synchronous components for disseminating information encouragingparticipation, and supporting team work.

Designers of such environments are often at a loss as to how to select and orchestrate the wide range of functions:wikis, email, whiteboards, bulletin boards, posted documents, chat rooms, video streaming, VOIP, etc. From testingof our exemplar environment made up of generic media components, we propose to make careful generalizations tosimilar environments that are within the means of corporations. These generalizations will provide STCpractitioners with heuristics for developing effective distance education environments needed both within andbeyond their companies.

In addition, these generalizations will enable STC itself to extend the short-course model now in use for its ownmember education. We believe the findings of the study completed as part of the planning grant (see Appendix 2 forfurther details) have considerable implications for the STC’s electronic delivery of training and education. Inparticular, the findings suggest that, were the STC to increase the number of its offerings of electronicallydistributed training, it should put as much energy into developing the tools and processes for electronic interactionas on finding instructors who are gifted in downstream delivery. The work proposed here moves in that direction.

In Phase I of the proposed project, we will finalize the choice of generic components to include in our distanceeducation environment. (Again, the construction, support and ownership of the environment comes from RPI andfalls outside the bounds of the STC grant.) In Phase II, we will use both the students survey instrument from whichcollected data this year and informal methods to test the environment, using the Usable Content Seminar II as alaboratory for user collaboration with working professionals at a distance. The Usable Content Seminar II, to beoffered in Spring 07, will be available to the distance students completing our MS in HCI as well as interestedmembers of the STC leadership. Our distance students mirror most of the characteristics of the STC membership.They are full-time working professionals who need to squeeze education and training into busy work-life schedules.They come from all over the United States and often are working in different time zones, even different countries.And they collaborate on team projects that must be coordinated across these complex schedules and time zones.

In Phase III, we will use the research findings produced in Phase II, to redesign the exemplary distance educationenvironment to make it more usable and to serve as the platform for another iteration of testing. In Phases IV and V,we will bring the results of this work together in the development of a common formal testing protocol, to be used inthe third Usable Content Seminar, to be offered in Fall 07 to both on-campus and distance students.

The results of this work will be a case study of the design of a distance learning environment, heuristics for thedevelopment of distance education environment tailored to the STC membership needs, generalizations about theusability of post-documents more broadly, and guidelines concerning user collaboration with working professionals.



We also propose to use the heuristics to develop and deliver a short course to the STC membership on post-document usability. Data comparing the original and revised exemplars of distance education at RPI, particularlyefforts to develop a learning community that operates beyond classroom hours would yield distance studentsatisfaction data about their perceptions of the learning modes. The research instrument would be based in part onan electronically hosted questionnaire used at RPI for two years.

In our plans on this project, we call attention to the distinction between the exemplar we use for our analysis and theshort course we will produce for STC membership. Our Usable Content Seminar exemplar, like all the otherexemplars in this proposal, is embedded in a specific real world project and reflects on-going development. Thisembedding is, we suggest, a plus for the STC because it allows the generalizations we develop to be based on realworld work. Nevertheless, all of these exemplars need to be considered not as part of the deliverables for the projectbut rather as the testbed in which the deliverables are to be generated.

By contrast, the STC short course we propose to deliver is one of the deliverables for this project and will becomeSTC’s intellectual property. This short course, of 1-2 hours in length and delivered at a distance from STC’s ownservers, can be integrated into STC’s outreach efforts and can become a model for other such efforts. We plan towork with one or more liaison people designated by the STC to design the best way to do this. Thoughone trip to meet face to face seems advisable, much of the interaction with the STC could occur throughdistance delivery. One deliverable for this goal would be a version of the student satisfaction survey thatcan be adapted by the STC for assessment of its electronically delivered training.

DeliverablesThe deliverables for the proposed work are described below. In keeping with our agreement with STC, alldeliverables become the property of STC.

1. Reports to the STCIn keeping with the major grant requirements, and as detailed in Figure 13, we plan quarterly reports to the STCResearch Board, roughly one for each phase of the project:

• The Phase I Quarterly Report, to be delivered Jan 1 06, will describe our finalized plans for usercollaborations, including final exemplars to be tested in each of the four project areas, arrangements withuser communities, and technologies required to support interactions.

• The Phase II Quarterly Report, to be delivered on Apr 1 07, will describe the user collaborations carried outas part of our informal testing plan, providing an early draft of the case studies that will be part of our finaldeliverables.

• The Phase IIIa Quarterly Report, to be delivered July 1 07 will report on our redesign efforts and our firstefforts at the development of guidelines for post-document development, a second major deliverable of theproposed work

• The Phase IVa Quarterly Report, to be delivered Oct 1 07, will describe our plans for formal usabilitytesting, with specific emphasis on metrics appropriate to post-documents.

• The Phase IVb Quarterly Report, to be delivered on Jan 1 08, will report the results of our formal testing.• The Phase V Quarterly Report, to be delivered on Apr 1 08, will describe the guidelines we develop for

post-document usability.• The Phase VI Final report, to be delivered on Aug 1 08, will report on all our major deliverables, with

special emphasis on our plans for dissemination.

2. Post-Document ToolkitOne of the main deliverables of this project is the Post-Document Toolkit, a set of heuristics that STC practitionerscan use to insure that the post-documents on which they work are usable in the broadened sense established in thisproposal. Accompanying the heuristics will be quantifiable metrics that can be used to test for post-documentusability. To make the Toolkit usable, each heuristic and metric will be explained and illustrated through examplesfrom our work.



3. STC Short CourseOutreach is to the STC Membership is planned through a short course on Usable Content in a Post-Document Worldto be offered through STC’s training for working professionals. This 1-2 hour course would be staffed by projectfaculty in its initial offering; course content would become the property of STC. Possible topics for the short courseinclude:

1. usability in a post-document world,2. the five exemplary post-documents (cross-cultural graphics, cultural websites, web gallery interfaces, wikis, and

distance education environments),

4. STC Conference PresentationsWe plan to present our work at the STC convention both in May 08 and in May 09.

5. STC MonographWe also plan to deliver a monograph to the STC Press reporting our results, including the cases studies, the Post-Document Toolkit, and an overview of usability in a post-document world.

Project Feasibility

QualificationsCheryl Geisler, Professor of Rhetoric, Composition, and Information Technology (Carnegie Mellon University), ishead of the Department of Language, Literature, and Communication and a leading scholar of IText, the emergingmix of text and information technologies. Her paper with Annis Golden, Work-Life Boundary Management and thePersonal Digital Assistant: Practical Activities and Interpretative Repertoires, was just named one of the Top ThreePapers in the Division of Organization Communication at the National Communication Association.

Audrey Bennett, Associate Professor of Graphics (Yale School of Art) is a leading advocate of interactiveaesthetics and a gifted graphic designer. She is the editor of the forthcoming Design Studies: Theory and Researchin Graphic Design from Princeton Architectural Press.

Jan Fernheimer, Assistant Professor (University of Texas at Austin) just competed her dissertation work at theUniversity of Texas at Austin where she was a pioneer in writing about the use of blogs in the compositionclassroom. At Rensselaer she is responsible for establishing the intellectual agenda for Rensselaer’s new Center forCommunication Practices and has also been working to incorporate wikis into her Course on Writing to the WorldWide Web.

Roger Grice, Clinical Associate Professor (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) is a pioneer in the area of usability andan active member of the STC, which awarded him the President’s Award in May 2003. His latest piece, “Evaluatingthe Complete User Experience: Dimensions of Usability,” just appeared in Gurak and Lay’s Research Methods inTechnical Communication from Praeger in 2003.

Robert Krull, Professor of Technical Communication (University of Wisconsin Madison), is a long-time advocatefor the user in on-line interaction. He was named STC Fellow in 2006. His paper with D. Michael Sharp, VisualVerbs: Showing Change, Movement, Force and Action in Procedural Graphics, was presented in at STC in 2005.

Patricia Search, Professor of Graphics (Goddard College) is an internationally respected graphic artist andresearcher in interaction design. In 2004, she served as a Fulbright Senior Specialist Grant to work with theUniversity of Technology in Sydney, Australia, and the University of Western Sydney, Council for InternationalExchange of Scholars on issues related to Australian indigenous cultures. She just published “Ancient Voices inCyberspace: Visualizing the Cultural Interface,” in Visual Literacy and Development from the International VisualLiteracy Association.

James P. Zappen, Professor of Rhetoric and technical Communication (University of Missouri at Columbia) is aleading scholar of the application of digital rhetoric to community networking. His book, The Rebirth of Dialogue:



Bakhtin, Socrates, and the Rhetorical Tradition, was published by State University of New York Press in 2004. Thework of Connected Kids was the cover feature for Computer, the flagship publication of the IEEE Computer Societyin December of 2005.

Resources

Key to the Distance Learning Project and our plans for Outreach to the STC membership is the development of adistance learning seminar room to support the interaction of students on-campus and at a distance. This facility isbeing developed as an upgrade to an existing seminar room in the Department of Language, Literature andCommunication, work that has already been budgeted and will be completed in summer 06, prior to the start of thework proposed here.

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Appendix 1: Usable Content Seminar Schedule, Spring 06

Week Seminar Meetings Team Meetings

Week 1Jan 18

Usable Content Seminar 1Organization, Basic Concepts, Projects

(1 hour)

Choose and review preliminary exemplar forpresentation next week. (Up to 2 hours)

Week 2Jan 25

Usable Content Seminar 2Preliminary Exemplars, Part I

(1 hour)

Construct "top hits" literature review forpresentation in three weeks. (Up to 2 hours)

Week 3Feb 1

Usable Content Seminar 3Preliminary Exemplars, Part II

(1 hour)

Read "top hits" literature review for presentation intwo weeks. (Up to 2 hours)

Week 4Feb 8 No seminar

Finalize presentation of top hits literature reviewfor next week. (Up to 3 hours)

Week 5Feb 15

Usable Content Seminar 4Top Hits in the Literatures

(2 hours)

Begin work on exemplar analysis using andextending concepts from literature for presentationin three weeks.(Up to 1 hour)

Week 6Feb 22

No seminarContinue working on exemplar analysis forpresentation in two weeks.(Up to 3 hours)

Week 7March 1

No seminarFinalize exemplar analysis for presentation nextweek. (Up to 3 hours)

Week 8March 8

Usable Content Seminar 5Exemplar Analysis

(2 hours)Prepare for Design Charette (Up to 1 hour)

Week 9March 15

Spring Break

Week 10March 22

No seminarPrepare for Design Charette next week.(Up to 2hours)

Week 11March 29

Usable Content Seminar 6Design Charette

(5 hours)Prepare for Symposium next week. (Up to 1 hour)

Week 12April 5

Usable Content Seminar 7LL&C Symposium

(1 hour)

Begin work on final project due in three weeks.

(Up to 3 hours)

Week 13April 12

No seminarContinue work on final project due in two weeks.

(Up to 3 hours)Week 14April 19

No seminarMake last revisions on final project due in nextweek.(Up to 3 hour)

Week 15April 26

Usable Content Seminar 8Final Project Presentations

(2 hours)

Make last revisions on final project due in nextweek. (Up to 1 hour)

Week 16May 3

No seminar Final Projects Due



Appendix 2: Survey of Distance Learning ExemplarsIn spring 2006, members of the Usable Content Seminar gathered data from students enrolled in the two distancelearning exemplars, Studio Design in HCI, taught by Roger Grice, and Electronic Coaching Systems, taught RobertKrull. One round of data gathering had been conducted prior to the start of this STC-supported project. The datagathered as part of the STC project expanded the number of courses and students covered in data collection. Inaddition, faculty and a few of the student teaching assistants involved in the STC project were also canvassedregarding their use of technology in the classroom. The design of the research instruments was driven by theresearch literature on instructional design and Rensselaer’s ten years of experience in delivering distance education.

The research instrument used was a 100-item questionnaire developed in 2005 by two distance students as part oftheir work for another HCI course, Electronic Coaching Systems course. Questions were derived from theinstructional design literature and adapted to the distance learning environment. About a dozen students filled outthe questionnaire in 2005. For the STC-supported project, an additional 38 students were surveyed. Both years thequestionnaire was hosted on a Web server and the identities of the students were kept anonymous by the system.

Findings

The first and second year’s data were similar, though the second year’s data were more comprehensive and provideadditional information regarding student perceptions, the effects of instructors, and other factors. Overall, thefindings are that distance students find the instructional system effective and that they can use the electronic tools tomanage their interaction with each other and with the instructor. Most interesting, distance students have a stronger,though separate, sense of learning community and their method of handling instructional content is different fromthat of on-campus students. Here are just a few further details:

Distance students and on-campus students have different perceptions of the same courses. They providedstatistically significantly different responses on over 25 of the approximately 100 items in the questionnaire. Giventhe sample sizes of this study, this is an unusually large number of significant differences.

Distance students use electronic interaction tools (for example, the synchronous chat and electronic whiteboardfunctions of Elluminate) to support student-to-student connections in managing instructional content. Distancestudents develop a learning path that is connected to, but separate from that of the downstream delivery of theinstructor.

Distance students and on-campus students had a somewhat different view of who their peers were in the courses.Though there was a difference between the courses, students in the two groups tended to see one another as fallinginto two separate groups rather than into one integrated group. Our data do not show whether that is a problem ornot.

The two distance courses we examined were fairly similar overall. Because the two courses had different content,different instructors, and only one of the two had a teaching assistant, it is not possible for us to determine whichspecific factor produced what difference in student perception did occur. Only 10 out of over 100 questionnaireitems produced statistically significant differences. Five significant differences could be expected due to chancealone. However, most of the differences related to the students’ sense of a joint learning community and to thedistance students’ feeling that the instructor was aware of their concerns and activities. The course that had noteaching assistant to constantly monitor the synchronous chat line produced a stronger sense of two communitiesrather than one community. Whether it is the absence of the teaching assistant or some aspect of the performance ofthe instructor that yielded these differences, it is not possible to say.

The details of these findings have considerable implications for other forms of electronic delivery of training andeducation. For example, the findings suggest that, were the STC to increase the number of its offerings ofelectronically distributed training, it would need to spend as much energy on tools and processes for use ofelectronic interaction tools as on finding instructors who are gifted in downstream delivery.



Appendix 3: MS in HCI at a DistanceThe integration of computer systems, the Internet, and the World Wide Web into the working world and home lifehave highlighted the need for professionals who can design human-computer interactions that allow people to workintuitively and with less dependence on long, detailed instructions. Rensselaer's M.S. in Human-ComputerInteraction (HCI) combines coursework in human-computer interaction, technical communication, informationdesign, and cognitive science to provide the education designers of such systems will need in the future.

The program integrates theory of computer usability and human communication theory with research and practice indesigning and evaluating human-computer communication systems. While the program provides HCIimplementation skills, the focus is on the study of basic problems in human-technology communication. Our degreeemphasizes fundamental principles and evaluation of human-computer interfaces, performance support systems, andsystem usability, rather than focusing on the hardware or software tools used to implement products.

The MS in HCI, designed in cooperation with industry experts, provides those involved in the design of human-computer interactions with the knowledge and skills they will need to create new and better ways for people tocommunicate with and through computers. The core courses provide an overview of HCI theory and research, anintroduction to HCI research methods, and a foundation in usability. In-depth work is provided in electroniccoaching systems, communication design for the World Wide Web, and information management. All studentsmust complete electives in HCI implementation, research methods, and advanced HCI topics, as well as a capstonedesign experience.

Rensselaer offers the MS in HCI to both on-campus students and working professionals through Education forWorking Professionals (EWP). EWP is one of Rensselaer's four core enterprises and encompasses a range ofprograms designed specifically for current and future workforce leaders with a range of high-end, customizeddegree, certificate, and professional development programs. Program content flows from the heart of Rensselaer'sresearch strengths and unique academic programs. Rensselaer supports this vision by forging strategic partnershipswith businesses, governments, universities, and innovative professionals who impact society and technology aroundthe nation and the world.

Rensselaer is dedicated to providing an interactive learning environment for students who are seeking high-levelknowledge while they hone their analytical capabilities and leadership skills and enhance their innovative thinking.Rensselaer graduates who are executives, senior professionals, managers, and individuals with high potential-become architects of their futures. With dramatic increases in the rate of change, working professionals expect anddemand an academic environment that fits the evolving needs of their fast-paced world, and Rensselaer responds tothis need through the EWP enterprise.



Appendix 4: Supporting Letters

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