Ch3 – Usibility During the Planning Stages

Melek OKTAY

(Ceng-bilm 403)

Outline

• Usibility and Technical Information• Usibility During the Planning Stages• Usibility During the Writing and Designing Process• Writing and Organizing Information for Usability• Proofreading Your Final Draft

Usibility and Technical Information

• Usibility and Technical Information• Usibility During the Planning Stages• Usibility During the Writing and Designing Process• Writing and Organizing Information for Usability• Proofreading Your Final Draft

Usibility and Technical Information

• When you plan,write, and design a piece of communication– Brochure, manual, online help screen, or report you are creating a

communication product.

• Like any other product, people will use it only if they can find what they need, understand the language, follow the instructions, nd read the graphics.– In other words, communication products must be usable.

• Usability means that “people who use the product can do so quickly and easily to accomplish their tasks”

Usibility During the Planning Stages

• Usibility and Technical Information• Usibility During the Planning Stages• Usibility During the Writing and Designing Process• Writing and Organizing Information for Usability• Proofreading Your Final Draft

Usibility During the Planning Stages

• Before you begin writing or designing any information product, learn all you can about your audiance and intended use of your document.

• Perform task analysis– Ultimately, your document will be more useful if you know what your

audiance wants to do with it.

• Develop an Information Plan– Once you have a clear picture of the audiance and purpose for your

document, as well as the intended user tasks, you can draft an information plan:

• Outline of the assumptions• Goals• Budged for your document

Usibility During the Planning Stages(cont.)

– Information plans can be as short as a two-to three-page memo or as long as a five-to ten-page report, depending on your project.

• Do the Research– Developing an information plan might require research

Usibility During the Writing and Designing Process

• Usibility and Technical Information• Usibility During the Planning Stages• Usibility During the Writing and Designing Process• Writing and Organizing Information for Usability• Proofreading Your Final Draft

Usibility During the Writing and Designing Process

• Revise Your Plan and Your project– Once you have completed these first steps, you can write, design, and

test your document.• If your audience finds a technical term difficult to understand, define it clearly

or use a simpler word or concept.

• Create Documentation That Is Context-Sensitive– A useful way to think about providing documentation for your audience

is to consider documentation context-sensitive.• Context-sensitive documentation is usually embedded within the software

itself and addresses the specific tasks that users want to complete• Many online help systems today are context-sensitive, providing audiences

with more closely focues help that pertains to their immediate user needs.

Usibility During the Writing and Designing Process

• Usibility and Technical Information• Usibility During the Planning Stages• Usibility During the Writing and Designing Process• Writing and Organizing Information for Usability• Proofreading Your Final Draft

Writing and Organizing Information for Usability

• You can dramatically increase the usability of any communication by focusing on three aspects of writing– First: use good grammar and style.

• Readers can not extract what they need from poorly written information• Moreover, bad writing makes you look (and your company) imcompetent

(yetersiz)

– Second: create an overview to give your audiance a framework for navigating the document.

– Third: “chunk” your information into units that make sense for the specific audience and purpose