13 Reviewing, Evaluating, and Testing Documents and Websites

Printed Page 340-341

image

Understanding Reviewing, Evaluating, and Testing

Reviewing Documents and Websites

REVISING

EDITING

• GUIDELINES: Editing the Draft

PROOFREADING

Conducting Usability Evaluations

Conducting Usability Tests

THE BASIC PRINCIPLES OF USABILITY TESTING

PREPARING FOR A USABILITY TEST

CONDUCTING A USABILITY TEST

• ETHICS NOTE: Understanding the Ethics of Informed Consent

INTERPRETING AND REPORTING THE DATA FROM A USABILITY TEST

• DOCUMENT ANALYSIS ACTIVITY: Obtaining Informed Consent

WRITER’S CHECKLIST

EXERCISES

CASE 13: Revising a Document for a New Audience and image

This chapter focuses on techniques for improving the usability of documents and websites. In technical communication, usability refers to how easily a person can use a document, site, or software program to carry out a task. In other words, usability measures how successfully a document achieves its purpose and meets its audience’s needs. More specifically, usability refers to five factors related to a person’s use of the item (Nielsen, 2012):

  • Ease of learning: the time it takes a person to learn to use the item
  • Efficiency of use: the time it takes a person to carry out a task after learning how to do it
  • Memorability: a person’s ability to remember how to carry out a task
  • Error frequency, severity, and recovery: the number and severity of errors a person makes in carrying out a task, and the ease with which a person recovers from these errors
  • Subjective satisfaction: how much a person likes (or dislikes) carrying out the task