© 2003 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. 1 Chapter 17 Designing and Testing the Document for Usability Technical Communication, 9/e John M. Lannon PowerPoint prepared by Jimidene Murphy

© 2003 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. 2 Defining a Document’s Usability Criteria Type of task User characteristics Constraints of the setting Specific criteria  Worthwhile content  Sensible organization  Readable style  Accessible design  Ethical, legal, cultural considerations

© 2003 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. 3 How to Achieve a Usable Design  Outline the main tasks involved  Analyze the audience and the setting  Do the research  Develop a design plan

© 2003 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. 4 How to Test Your Document for Usability  Qualitative testing  Quantitative testing  When to use which test

© 2003 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. 5 Usability Issues in Online Documents  Online documents are used for different purposes than hard copy documents  Online readers don’t usually need persuading  Visuals help in online instruction  Online documents are meant to be interactive  Online readers can often get lost in hyperlinks

© 2003 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. 6 Guidelines for Testing Usability  Identify the document’s purpose  Identify the human factors  Design a usability test  Administer the test  Evaluate the results

© 2003 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. 7 Any Questions? For additional help reviewing this chapter, please visit the Companion Website for your text at