Re: audience analysis resources

Subject: Re: audience analysis resources
From: Stuart Burnfield <slb -at- westnet -dot- com -dot- au>
To: Techwr-l <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2009 13:35:16 +0800 (WST)

Mark Osborne recommended a book by JoAnn Hackos, "Standards for Online Communication." I haven't read this one but JoAnn collaborated with Ginny Redish on a later book, "User and Task Analysis for Interface Design". It's terrific, and I think you'll find it even more useful. Don't worry about the interface design part in the title; it's just as applicable to tech writing.

TOC:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471178314/ref=ase_comtechservicesiA/107-3132147-2593368#reader

A review:
http://bulletin.sigchi.org/1999/pdf/july/pubs

I agree with Peter Neilson that asking users is useful, but you need to do a lot more than that. For a start, I'd say that watching someone try to perform a task using your procedure is about fifty times more useful than getting them to read it and provide feedback.

Note that audience analysis requires understanding not just users but the tasks they need to perform and the environment they work in.

Stuart
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Free Software Documentation Project Web Cast: Covers developing Table of
Contents, Context IDs, and Index, as well as Doc-To-Help
2009 tips, tricks, and best practices.
http://www.doctohelp.com/SuperPages/Webcasts/

Help & Manual 5: The complete help authoring tool for individual
authors and teams. Professional power, intuitive interface. Write
once, publish to 8 formats. Multi-user authoring and version control! http://www.helpandmanual.com/

---
You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- web -dot- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-

To unsubscribe send a blank email to
techwr-l-unsubscribe -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
or visit http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/options/techwr-l/archive%40web.techwr-l.com


To subscribe, send a blank email to techwr-l-join -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com

Send administrative questions to admin -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot- Visit
http://www.techwr-l.com/ for more resources and info.

Please move off-topic discussions to the Chat list, at:
http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/listinfo/techwr-l-chat


Follow-Ups:

Previous by Author: Re: Any members of IEEE PCS out there?
Next by Author: Re: SharePoint as source control system for FrameMaker?
Previous by Thread: Audience Analysis Resources
Next by Thread: Re: audience analysis resources


What this post helpful? Share it with friends and colleagues:


Sponsored Ads